Re: autoconf doesn't escape sed metacharacters in paths

[Nick Bowler]

On 6/18/18, Quasi Computational <address@hidden> wrote:
>  Reproduction:
>
> ```
> $ mkdir '\9'
> $ cd '\9'
> $ git clone https://github.com/haskell/network
> $ cd network
> $ git checkout 7e3f16d57b8745ef12cec8c9164bb91eeac90b5b # known-to-fail
> commit
> $ autoconf
> $ ./configure
> ```
>
> This fails for me with this line:
>
> ```
> sed: -e expression #1, char 400: invalid reference \9 on `s' command's RHS
> ```

Right, filenames containing backslashes are not supported by Autoconf,
see [1]; in particular, "These restrictions apply not only to the files
that you distribute, but also to the absolute file names of your source,
build, and destination directories."

However, I am sure if this specific issue is not too cumbersome to fix
then patches to do so would be accepted.

[1] 
https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#File-System-Conventions

Cheers,
  Nick