Re: Variable substitiution in help strings

[Rafael Laboissiere]

[Sorry for the belated reply.  I just noticed the message below because I
saw it in a web archive.  Please, Cc: replies to me, since I am not
subscribed to the autoconf mailing list.]

* Thomas Dickey <address@hidden> [2003-12-30 18:20]:

> Judging by the changelog, it was to accommodate a defective editor:

> 2000-10-12  Akim Demaille  <address@hidden>

>         * tests/mktests.sh: Backslash the quote in the heredocs to help
>         syntax highlighting tools.
>         * tests/atspecific.m4 (AT_CHECK_UPDATE): Give a better AT_SETUP
>         title.

>From inspecting the autoconf sources, the problem appears to be in
lib/autoconf/general.m4, not tests/mktests.sh, more precisely in the excerpt
below:

if test -n "$ac_init_help"; then
m4_ifset([AC_PACKAGE_STRING],
[  case $ac_init_help in
     short | recursive ) echo "Configuration of AC_PACKAGE_STRING:";;
   esac])
  cat <<\_ACEOF
m4_divert_pop([HELP_ENABLE])dnl
m4_divert_push([HELP_END])dnl
m4_ifset([AC_PACKAGE_BUGREPORT], [
Report bugs to <AC_PACKAGE_BUGREPORT>.])
_ACEOF
fi

I still do not understand why the quoting of _ACEOF is necessary.  Could an
autoconf developer explain it to me, please?

-- 
Rafael