autoconf and paths with spaces

[Paul Kienzle]

In our continuing quest for a Mac OS X style octave app we have support 
for the pkg command using the header files stored in the application 
resource directory.  The problem is that the os x user may have placed 
the app on a path with a space in the name, or perhaps renamed the app 
to something like "Octave 2.9.12".

With proper quoting of the arguments in mkoctfile we can indeed build 
oct and mex files, even if the path has spaces in its name.  The last 
sticking point seems to be autoconf.

For example, configuring the octave-forge odepkg with:

        ./autogen.sh
        ./configure CFLAGS="-I'path with spaces'"

the configure script fails with:

        configure:1598: gcc -I'path with spaces'   conftest.c  >&5
        gcc: with: No such file or directory
        gcc: spaces': No such file or directory

I can think of two solutions to this problem:

        1) link include and lib into /tmp/octave before building packages.

	2) putting autoconf features in octave (feature queries, 
header/library discovery) so that most packages don't need autoconf.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

        - Paul