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Re: m4sh bug (AS_VAR_IF)


From: Eric Blake
Subject: Re: m4sh bug (AS_VAR_IF)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:38:12 -0600
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On 08/16/2010 02:33 PM, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>> But the documentation makes no mention that this is required.
> 
> Then the documentation needs fixing.

Agreed.

Something along the lines of stating that <value> must be a shell word,
and then giving an example with a string containing quotes and spacing
would be appropriate.  Would you like to try your hand at it?

> 
>> Furthermore,
>> it seems unnecessary to inflict such a requirement.
> 
> Well, problem is, the user might just prefer single quotes, or some more
> complicated construct.  With the current code, she can eat that cake
> too, but with fixed double-quoting that is ugly.

Indeed - from Autoconf's own testsuite of a supported use of AS_VAR_IF:

> tests/m4sh.at:1286:AS_VAR_IF([tmp], ['\a  "weird" `value` with; $fun
'\''characters

It's much easier to require that the user provide a single shell word
than it is to make m4 learn how to parse all possible shell constructs.

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

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