Re: Bug in AC_LIBOBJ, and autoconf 2.59

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

[I added Dan Reish to the CC, it was he who experienced this]

   | There is a small problem with the AC_LIBOBJ function in autoconf, take
   | the following snippet, and give it to autoconf.
   | 
   | ,----[ configure.ac ]
   | | AC_INIT
   | | AC_LIBOBJ(qux)
   | `----
   [...]
   | ,----
   | | ./configure: line 1221: syntax error near unexpected token `"*'
   | | ./configure: line 1221: `  *" qux.$ac_objext "*'
   | `----
   | 
   | What is the point of the spaces? They don't seem to serve any useful
   | purpose; and infact seem to be invalid shell script code.

   Which shell and system are you using?

Note that I couldn't reproduce it on my system (bash and Debian
GNU/Hurd).  The problem arrised for someone using Solaris (SunOS or
whatever they have named it this week).

Dan, what shell did you use when you ran configure?

   The spaces ensure that the code matches a full filename in
   $LIBOBJS, not part of another one (without them AC_LIBOBJ(qux)
   would not add qux.o to LIBOBJS if it already contained ztqux.o
   or qux.out.o).

Ahh, I see...

   I've also noted that $ac_objext is undefined in your example.
   What happens if you call AC_PROG_CC before AC_LIBOBJ?

Shouldn't matter, the inetutils configure.ac calls AC_PROG_CC before
any calls to AC_LIBOBJ.  Which is where the problem arised in the
first place.

Cheers.