Re: directory names with blanks break automake builds

[Bob Proulx]

Peter Simons wrote:
> Bob Proulx writes:
>  > This is a documented limitation.  See the following reference.
>  >
>  >   
> http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/limitations-on-file-names.html#limitations-on-file-names
> 
> I am sorry, but that page doesn't seem to mention this problem at all.

Hmm...  I kept seeing "newline" and reading in my head "whitespace".
My bad.  Sorry about that.  I was definitely wrong there.

>  > Using whitespace in filenames has long been an issue for Unix tools
>  > in general because whitespace is used as an input field separator.
> 
> I am sorry, but I have to disagree. Unix tools have no trouble
> whatsoever with blanks in file names -- it's humans who have trouble
> using them because we tend to forget the necessary quoting.

The 'make' tool is a good example of a classic Unix tool and it does
indeed have a problem with whitespace in the filename.

>  > This leads to 'make' not being designed to handle filenames with
>  > whitespace and of course automake tries to produce portable make
>  > configurations.
> 
> I don't know what limitation you refer to. Can you please explain how
> make's design causes these problems?

Unix make can't handle spaces in filenames.  It always splits upon
spaces.

Bob