Re: [PATCH] AC_INIT: properly quote package name containing m4 macro

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Eric, and thanks for having solved this.

I have just a minor nit and a question below (sorry for not giving a
proper review, but I must admit some parts of your patch are way beyond
me ATM :-(, especially the new definition of AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME).

On Thursday 17 March 2011, Eric Blake wrote:
> 
> [CUT]
>
> Note that this is a subtle semantic change.  It used to be that you
> could do:
> 
> m4_define([pkg_name], [foo])
> AC_INIT([pkg_name], [1.0])
> 
> and that would result in AC_SUBST of PACKAGE_NAME=foo
> 
> With this patch, it results in PACKAGE_NAME=pkg_name.
> 
> [CUT]
>
> I don't see too much harm in making this change, and stating that the
> arguments to AC_INIT are never re-expanded for macros by autoconf
> itself.  For most packages it won't matter - you don't define macros
> for your package name; for automake, it will avoid the testsuite
> failures encountered when the test name included an m4 builtin that
> later became an AC_INIT argument.  And for computation purposes, you
> can _always_ do this, pre- and post-patch, to get PACKAGE_NAME=foo:
> 
> m4_define([pkg_name], [foo])
> AC_INIT(pkg_name, [1.0])
>
Wouldn't
  AC_INIT(m4_defn([pkg_name]), [1.0])
be even better? It should also allow for patological stuff like:
  m4_define([pkg_name], [my-changequote])
Maybe the testsuite addition can be enhanced to ensure this works
too?  

> I think that I need to also touch up docs/autoconf.texi and NEWS
> before pushing this, in case someone really was expecting macro
> invocation after the fact.
>
FWIW, I think that would be prudent.

>
> [CUT]
>

> diff --git a/lib/autoconf/general.m4 b/lib/autoconf/general.m4
> index dd20e71..7b8c873 100644
> --- a/lib/autoconf/general.m4
> +++ b/lib/autoconf/general.m4
>
> [BIG CUT]
>
> @@ -588,9 +596,9 @@ AC_SUBST([sharedstatedir], ['${prefix}/com'])dnl
>  AC_SUBST([localstatedir],  ['${prefix}/var'])dnl
>  AC_SUBST([includedir],     ['${prefix}/include'])dnl
>  AC_SUBST([oldincludedir],  ['/usr/include'])dnl
> -AC_SUBST([docdir],         [m4_ifset([AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME],
> +AC_SUBST([docdir],         m4_ifset([AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME],
>                                    ['${datarootdir}/doc/${PACKAGE_TARNAME}'],
> -                                  ['${datarootdir}/doc/${PACKAGE}'])])dnl
> +                                  [['${datarootdir}/doc/${PACKAGE}']]))dnl
>  AC_SUBST([infodir],        ['${datarootdir}/info'])dnl
>  AC_SUBST([htmldir],        ['${docdir}'])dnl
>  AC_SUBST([dvidir],         ['${docdir}'])dnl
>
What is this hunk for exactly? (Sorry in advance if it's a stupid question)

Thanks,
   Stefano