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 [email protected]
From 3fbac862d74fcae50f2e49ac2298a856a441742c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eric Blake <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> --- 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 <[email protected]> + + 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 <[email protected]> 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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