Re: Variable substitiution in help strings

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

> > 2000-10-12  Akim Demaille  <address@hidden>
>
> >         * tests/mktests.sh: Backslash the quote in the heredocs to help
> >         syntax highlighting tools.
> >         * tests/atspecific.m4 (AT_CHECK_UPDATE): Give a better AT_SETUP
> >         title.
>
> >From inspecting the autoconf sources, the problem appears to be in
> lib/autoconf/general.m4, not tests/mktests.sh, more precisely in the excerpt
> below:
>
> if test -n "$ac_init_help"; then
> m4_ifset([AC_PACKAGE_STRING],
> [  case $ac_init_help in
>      short | recursive ) echo "Configuration of AC_PACKAGE_STRING:";;
>    esac])
>   cat <<\_ACEOF
> m4_divert_pop([HELP_ENABLE])dnl
> m4_divert_push([HELP_END])dnl
> m4_ifset([AC_PACKAGE_BUGREPORT], [
> Report bugs to <AC_PACKAGE_BUGREPORT>.])
> _ACEOF
> fi
>
> I still do not understand why the quoting of _ACEOF is necessary.  Could an
> autoconf developer explain it to me, please?

I'm not in that category.  However from context it seems likely that the
angle brackets were the feature of concern.

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net