Re: saving AC development strength

[Bruce Korb]

Akim Demaille wrote:

> Bruce, what you reproduced here is not what I sent.  I quadrigraphed
> only non paired quotes.

I understand.  I know I can write code that scans the user supplied
source to verify that the M4 quotes happen to properly nest,
but it is far, far easier to simply replace them and know that
I do not have to worry about M4 confusing source code square brackets
with its notion of open and close quotes.  I have three choices:

1.  changequote to something certain to not be confused (probably would
    have been a really good idea way back when, but likely not now)
2.  replace autoconf-special characters with the quadrigraphs
    (my current choice)
3.  lexically analyize the user supplied text for square
    bracket constructs that confuses M4's quoting scheme.  Then,
    if detected, only replace those characters that would enable
    M4 to properly not do substitutions in that text.

The last is non-trivial and, I think, not worth doing.