Re: quoting in autoconf

[Eric Blake]

According to Eric Blake on 12/11/2009 7:55 AM:
>> So to prevent further novices to the GNU Build system and autoconf to be
>> confused
>>  I would suggest to change it in:
> 
>>  "Arguments should be enclosed within the M4sugar quote characters `['
>> and `]', ..."
> 
>> And insert a hyperlink to the M4sugar text. Which starts at Chapter:
>> 8 Programming in M4
> 
> Thank you for the suggestion.  I'll probably make a patch along those lines.

I'm applying this:

-- 
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             e...@byu.net

From 3fbac862d74fcae50f2e49ac2298a856a441742c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Eric Blake <e...@byu.net>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:03:46 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Improve wording about m4 quote characters.

* doc/autoconf.texi (Autoconf Language): Autoconf quote characters
come from m4sugar, not raw m4.
(Active Characters): Mention that it is m4sugar which changes
quotes from `' to [].
* THANKS: Update.
Suggested by Josef Vukovic.

Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <e...@byu.net>
---
 ChangeLog         |   10 ++++++++++
 THANKS            |    1 +
 doc/autoconf.texi |    9 ++++++---
 3 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 528ff2b..205c535 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+2009-12-12  Eric Blake  <e...@byu.net>
+
+       Improve wording about m4 quote characters.
+       * doc/autoconf.texi (Autoconf Language): Autoconf quote characters
+       come from m4sugar, not raw m4.
+       (Active Characters): Mention that it is m4sugar which changes
+       quotes from `' to [].
+       * THANKS: Update.
+       Suggested by Josef Vukovic.
+
 2009-12-12  Ralf Wildenhues  <ralf.wildenh...@gmx.de>

        Revert "Improve AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIRS a bit." to fix shtool usage.
diff --git a/THANKS b/THANKS
index 623a297..a7afaf1 100644
--- a/THANKS
+++ b/THANKS
diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index 3144610..76bb279 100644
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -1133,12 +1133,13 @@ Autoconf Language

 When calling macros that take arguments, there must not be any white
 space between the macro name and the open parenthesis.  Arguments should
-be enclosed within the M4 quote characters @samp{[} and @samp{]}, and be
+be enclosed within the quote characters @samp{[} and @samp{]}, and be
 separated by commas.  Any leading blanks or newlines in arguments are ignored,
 unless they are quoted.  You should always quote an argument that
 might contain a macro name, comma, parenthesis, or a leading blank or
 newline.  This rule applies recursively for every macro
-call, including macros called from other macros.
+call, including macros called from other macros.  For more details on
+quoting rules, see @ref{Programming in M4}.

 For instance:

@@ -9864,7 +9865,9 @@ Active Characters
 To fully understand where proper quotation is important, you first need
 to know what the special characters are in Autoconf: @samp{#} introduces
 a comment inside which no macro expansion is performed, @samp{,}
-separates arguments, @samp{[} and @samp{]} are the quotes themselves,
+separates arguments, @samp{[} and @samp{]} are the quotes
+themsel...@footnote{by itself, M4 uses @samp{`} and @samp{'}; it is the
+M4sugar layer that sets up the preferred quotes of @samp{[} and @samp{]}.},
 @samp{(} and @samp{)} (which M4 tries to match by pairs), and finally
 @samp{$} inside a macro definition.

-- 
1.6.5.rc1

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