bug#14196: Problem with invoking "missing" in directory with "(" in name (Automake 1.11.6, Autoconf 2.68)

[Karl Berry]

Hi - thanks for this bug report (from seven years ago, sorry).

    4. now try and configure the project using ./configure or absolutely
        using sh -c '~/test\(1\)/configure'
    ...
    ./configure: eval: line 2084: syntax error near unexpected token `('
    ./configure: eval: line 2084: `${SHELL} 

It still happens with your supplied tarball (thanks much for that). As
far as I know this is a bug in autoconf, not automake. I have attempted
to reassign the bug. Zack, can you check please?

In the meantime, the failing line number has changed to 2126.
The relevant bit in the generated configure script is
        
  2117  if test x"${MISSING+set}" != xset; then
  2118    case $am_aux_dir in
  2119    *\ * | *\     *)
  2120      MISSING="\${SHELL} \"$am_aux_dir/missing\"" ;;
  2121    *)
  2122      MISSING="\${SHELL} $am_aux_dir/missing" ;;
  2123    esac
  2124  fi
  2125  # Use eval to expand $SHELL
  2126  if eval "$MISSING --is-lightweight"; then
  2127    am_missing_run="$MISSING "
  2128  else

I tried manually changing the condition on line 2119 to check for lparen:
  2119    *\ * | *\     * | *\(* )

and it went through ok. I suppose all shell metacharacters should be
checked for. Maybe always use the quoted version?

Thanks again for the report. --karl