bash 3.2 breaks KDE 3.x configure scripts

[Bernhard Rosenkraenzer]

Trying to run ./configure (fairly standard autoconf generated script) for KDE 
3.x kdebase results in:

checking for MAXPATHLEN... ./configure: line 61366: syntax error near 
unexpected token `do'
./configure: line 61366: `  dirs=`for i in $files; do if test -d $i; then echo 
$i; fi; done`'

As usual with autoconf generated scripts, the actual problem is nowhere near 
that line and hard to trace :/
(The actual trouble seems to start about 20000 lines earlier, after checking 
for MAXPATHLEN... is printed -- apparently bash 3.2 thinks there's a quote 
being opened when there isn't, adding some echo WHATEVER >/dev/stderr after  
MAXPATHLEN is printed results in them being ignored).

It works after reverting to bash 3.1 (while leaving KDE/autoconf the same)