Re: Proper m4 quoting

[Eric Blake]

[please don't top-post on technical lists]

On 04/14/2011 12:39 PM, Too, Justin A. wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> Sorry, here you are:

Thanks.

> 
> I've tried many permutations of quoting, but obviously I'm missing a
> fundamental understanding for this use case:
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> AC_DEFUN([SUPPORT_TEST],
> [
> AC_MSG_CHECKING([for test])
> 
> test_executable="$$][(top_builddir)/scripts/test/bin/my_test"

Why the $$ here?  M4 doesn't give $$ any special treatment, and the m4
end-quote/start-quote sequence of ][ doesn't really matter.  You ended
up creating the following line of shell code:

test_executable="$$(top_builddir)/scripts/test/bin/my_test"

and, at shell time, $$ is the process id, explaining your results.

> AC_SUBST(QMTEST, [$test_executable])

While this line works as-is (provided QMTEST is not an m4 macro name),
you are better off getting in the habit of recommended quoting style:

AC_SUBST([QMTEST], [$test_executable])

> 
> 22839(top_builddir)/scripts/test_harness/test/bin/my_test
> 
> I need
> 
> $(top_builddir)/scripts/test_harness/test/bin/my_test

Then use:

test_executable="\$(top_builddir)/scripts/test/bin/my_test"

to get a literal $ into the contents of $test_executable, or:

test_executable="$top_builddir/scripts/test/bin/my_test"

if you wanted the shell to expand $top_builddir prior to assigning to
$test_executable.  At any rate, neither line variant contains anything
that requires extra m4 quoting or escaping.

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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