Re: autoconf option fun

[Akim Demaille]

| AFAIS, apparent cause are the --?* clauses in autoconf.sh:
| 
| >     --autoconf-dir | --a* | -A )
| >        test $# = 1 && eval "$exit_missing_arg"
| >        shift

Yep, I'm in favor of removing all the --a* etc. it makes it uselessly
ambiguous, and short options are a better means to abbreviate.  And
trying to support exact abbreviations, as is done in configure, is an
additional tedious maintenance nightmare.  Maybe the day we rewrite
these guys atop M4sh we will improve this support, but before this,
trying to ``fix'' this is a pure waste of time.  Let's just remove
thus --a*.

| # autoconf --add-missing --help
| /usr/bin/m4: Cannot open --help/autoconf.m4f: No such file or
| directory
| 
| This indicates that autoconf's option parsing doesn't evaluate the
| '--'es correctly, rsp. attempts to accept --* as valid path/file
| names.

Well, that's what to be expected: --a* requires an argument, hence it
has to understand it the way it did.  That's the same as --output
--help for any program.