Re: autoconf config issue: what does ``|#_!!_#|'' mean?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Bruce Korb wrote on Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 05:07:53AM CET:
> Paul Eggert wrote:
> > Bruce Korb <address@hidden> writes:
> > 
> >> One of my "clients" is seeing this 8 character weirdism in all
> >> of the substitution expressions, rendering the configured files
> >> all completely broken.  I've not seen it before and don't know
> >> how it happens.  Any hints?  Thanks - Bruce
> > 
> > Please see
> > <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2006-06/msg00125.html>.
> 

> All that I can derive from that thread is that it is not an autoconf
> problem.  Well, I can also derive that if I tell someone to simply
> remove the ``|#_!!_#|'' from config.status  then all will be fine.
> I won't do that, of course.

And rightly so.

> I need to know why autoconf decided to
> leave its internal marker in the config.status output.

Most probably your client was munging with config.status internals and
not using it properly (like in the ruby case).  Please show the setup,
show how we can reproduce this, and on which system.  And remember:
grepping config.status for values is _not_ an appropriate, documented
way of extracting configure test results.

In the long run I do very much intend to break this several more times.

> So, it is not autoconf's fault, and it must be mine, but there are no
> docs that explain the cause of the problem.

There exists no document explaining all the mistakes one can make.  Not
for C, not for Autoconf.  You should show us (or investigage yourself).

Cheers,
Ralf