Re: Unstrippable quotes [was FYI: 23-gary-doc-typos.patch]

[Gary V. Vaughan]

Akim Demaille wrote:
> Hi gary,

Salut Akim!

> I would to hold the release of these macros, or to fix them asap: they
> ought to return their argument *quoted*.  Actually, most m4 macros are
> broken by design and should be duplicated with their quoting
> equivalent.
>
> For instance:
>
> ~/src/ace % cat /tmp/foo.m4                                      nostromo 16:09
> define(`foo', `bar')
> patsubst(`Foo', `F', `f')
> ~/src/ace % m4 /tmp/foo.m4                                       nostromo 16:09
>
> bar
>
>
> should display foo instead.  So I'd like to have epatsubst, eregexp
> etc. return a quoted result.

I agree that this is a very real problem with m4 as a language, but I think 
Rene's solution of adding an extra syntax category for unstrippable quotes is 
a better, more backward compatible solution.  If you (or anyone here!) wants 
to work on that patch, I'd be happy to help, and apply.  But I want to 
concentrate on fixing the exported API for module writers and release 1.5 
(actually, I'm thinking of calling the next release 2.0) ASAP.

Cheers,
        Gary.
--
  ())_. Gary V. Vaughan     gary@(oranda.demon.co.uk|gnu.org)
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