Re: AM_ICONV check fails with some shells

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Ralf,

> dash 0.5.4 for example, has the same issue.

This issue is a bug in the shell, see the other mail in this thread [1].
dash [2] is under active development, so I expect this bug to be fixed
in the future.

> The Autoconf manual
> recommends quoting the literal (dunno what POSIX says):
> 
> | `${VAR=LITERAL}'
> |      Be sure to quote:
> | 
> |           : ${var='Some words'}
> | 
> |      otherwise some shells, such as on Digital Unix V 5.0, die because
> |      of a "bad substitution".

I think I tried that when I started using this idiom in GNU clisp on 2001-08-16,
but it didn't work portably. (I don't recall the details.)

The fact that it has not been reported as a problem in GNU clisp, GNU gettext,
or elsewhere in 7 years, even though buggy shells like 'dash' exist, is
most likely because the prologue of autoconf-generated configure files makes
some effort to choose a sane shell.

Bruno


[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2008-07/msg00006.html
[2] http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/dash/