How does one configure in directories with special characters in them?

[Jeff Johnston]

Hello,

I am running on Linux (Fedora 17 to be exact) and have a directory 
called: /home/jjohnstn/runtime-NewConfiguration(2)/hello

The directory was generated by Eclipse as a workspace directory.  It 
defaults the name each time and adds numerics if the default name is 
already in use.

What is happening is that I have a simple configure.ac for a hello world 
program:

dnl Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.

AC_PREREQ(2.59)
AC_INIT(hello, 1.0)


AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE()

AC_PROG_CC

AC_CONFIG_FILES(Makefile src/Makefile)
AC_OUTPUT

When I try to configure it, there is a generated call to "missing" and 
the call adds the directory name it has calculated but it fails because 
the () chars are not escaped.  This occurs whether I change to the 
directory and run it as ./configure or whether I specify an absolute 
directory and escape the () chars myself.

Is there a way for me to get around this or this is simply a bug?

I am using autoconf 2.68

Thanks,

-- Jeff J.