On 2020-10-22, Zack Weinberg <za...@panix.com> wrote: > I acknowledge that requiring double-quotation of AC_INIT arguments > when they contain characters significant to M4 _should_ work; however, > it did not work in my tests (which were not exactly the same as the > above; see the "AC_INIT with unusual version strings" test case in > tests/base.m4, on the branch). Also, it increases the compat hit > we're taking, since e.g. > > AC_INIT(GNU MP, GMP_VERSION, [gmp-b...@gmplib.org, see > https://gmplib.org/manual/Reporting-Bugs.html], gmp) > > which also worked with 2.69, will now be considered invalid,
If this works in 2.69 I don't see why this snippet would be rendered invalid if AC_INIT did not over/underquote, because ... > Would you care to propose a complete patch to be applied on top of > zack/ac-init-quoting? In addition to "reverting hunks" you would need > to make sure that AC_PACKAGE_* are always treated consistently within > lib/autoconf/*.m4, fix the testsuite by adding double quotation to AC_INIT > arguments where necessary, and document in both doc/autoconf.texi and NEWS > the changed requirements for AC_INIT arguments. ... I am not suggesting we change any behaviour to AC_INIT arguments wrt. quoting, as compared to Autoconf 2.69. As far as I know this version dutifully follows typical m4 quoting conventions, I am not aware of any specific under/overquotation in existing releases. This underquotation (2.69c) and overquotation (zack/ac-init-quoting branch) is a behaviour change compared to 2.69. I am proposing we NOT change the amount of quoting, but rather we should stick with normal m4 conventions, which would avoid all the AC_INIT-related regressions I've seen reported so far to this list. Anyway, I should have some time on the weekend, I'll see what I can do about proposing a proper patch :) Cheers, Nick