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Re: 2.62 AT_SETUP limitations


From: Eric Blake
Subject: Re: 2.62 AT_SETUP limitations
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:45:26 -0600
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According to Joel E. Denny on 4/22/2008 2:36 AM:

Hello Joel,

| According to Autoconf 2.62's manual, AT_SETUP no longer allows unbalanced
| parentheses to appear in test case titles.  This regression breaks CVS
| Bison's test suite, which worked fine with 2.61, and it seems like an
| unnecessary limitation.

Unfortunately, it was a necessary implementation artifact in order to
fix the more common bug of [], quadrigraphs, and underquoted space after
comma resulting in the 'ok' message appearing in the wrong column of
testsuite output.

|   Output file name: (

Yes, it is a behavioral regression; but at least we documented this as an
intentional change.

|
| The second test case title above now causes "make testsuite" to produce
| this error:
|
|   /usr/bin/m4:output.at:189: ERROR: end of file in string
|   autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
|   make: *** [testsuite] Error 1

Yes, because this is a case of unbalanced ().

|
| Instead of adding the precondition "no unbalanced parentheses" to
| AT_SETUP, why not add the precondition "the argument must expand properly
| quoted"?

Because AT_SETUP now uses the newly documented m4_expand macro, which in
turn REQUIRES balanced () because it temporarily uses
m4_changequote([(],[)]) to force preservation of unquoted space after
comma.  In other words, now that () is participating as quote characters,
it must occur in a balanced manner, regardless of the level of []
surrounding the usage (since the temporary changequote means that [] is
not quoting the () usage).  My thinking at the time of implementing this
restriction was that the user was unlikely to use unbalanced () in a test
title, but you've proven my guess wrong.

|  In general, I seem to able to write m4 macros that can reliably
| manipulate any user arguments that meet the latter precondition.  Given
| autom4te's quadrigraphs for brackets, the user is then never limited on
| what strings he can specify to my macros.  I think this should be possible
| with AT_SETUP as well.

Sounds like we need to add a new quadrigraph for ( and ), then.  Any
suggestions for the two middle characters?

|
| For example:
|
|   AT_SETUP([[Output file name: (]])

Won't work, since m4_expand needs balanced ().

|
| Or if the user needs to pass in a macro for expansion:
|
|   m4_define([test_char], [[(]])
|   AT_SETUP([[Output file name: ]test_char])

Still won't work, since m4_expand expands test_char in advance to
determine how long the output line will be, and in expanding it, sees an
unbalanced ().

|
| AT_SETUP can use m4_dquote($1) to initially expand the argument.  If $1
| meets the precondition, this will expand to a perfectly quoted string that
| can be passed to, for example, m4_bpatsubst for shell-escaping.  The
| result of m4_bpatsubst can be placed in the output shell script.

m4_bpatsubst is dirt slow compared to m4_expand; I already spent quite a
bit of effort in speeding up autom4te behavior in 2.62 above what it
previously was.  And it is not shell-escaping that is the problem, but
determining the width of the resulting string.  Really, the problem is
that there is no way to determine whether $1 is safe to expand, short of
expanding $1; thus, if it was not safe, you've already screwed up the
state of the m4 parsing.  So we chose to document this as a limitation of
AT_SETUP strings instead.

|
| Is this precondition believed to be insufficient?  Or is the trouble that
| it breaks backward compatibility?  In the latter case, can we add an
| AT_SETUP_ROBUST that can handle unbalanced parentheses?

I'm leaning more to the quadrigraph option.  In the meantime, you will
just have to work around the limitation by choosing a test title that
expands to a safe string (for example, see
http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=autoconf.git;a=blob;f=tests/autotest.at;h=e6dc862;hb=9651f4a,
starting at line 398, for how autoconf tests funny test titles, but prints
an English name in AT_SETUP rather than the actual funny title; also, this
would be where we would add a test using a quadrigraph to ensure that your
desired usage pattern is restored in autoconf 2.63).

|
| Thanks.

Thank you for the report.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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