Re: FTB if path to build dir contains a space

[Bruno Haible]

Alexander Batischev wrote:
> GNU gettext fails to build if the path to the build directory 
> contains a space character.
> 
> 1. https://crates.io/crates/gettext-rs
> 2. https://github.com/Koka/gettext-rs/issues/9 
> 
> I just reproduced this on Debian testing with GNU gettext 0.21, outside 
> of our crate and Rust. Arguments to ./configure were:
> 
>      --without-emacs --disable-java --disable-csharp --disable-c++ 
>      --disable-shared --enable-static --enable-fast-install 
>      --with-included-gettext --with-included-glib 
>      --with-included-libcroco --with-included-libunistring
> 
> Is this indeed a limitation in autotools, like the bug report states?

This is unsupported for all GNU packages. The reasons are:
  * Like the reference to the Autoconf manual says, shell and make quote
    special characters differently, and thus it's hard to find substitutable
    values that work in both contexts.
  * Nobody spends time testing this.

So, even the attempt to build in such a situation is dangerous, as it may
end up executing commands that no one has meant to be executed.

> Can this be worked around somehow by you, or should I move the build to 
> something like /tmp?

It is pointless to attempt to work around it, because the same result —
working binaries — can be obtained by building in a build directory
without spaces. There are plenty of them, under /home/$USER, under /tmp,
under /var/tmp, under /dev/shm, and so on.

Bruno