Re: autoupdate: AU_ALIAS shouldn't affect itself

[Nick Bowler]

On 2021-01-26, egall--- via Bug reports for autoconf
<bug-autoconf@gnu.org> wrote:
> Say I have an M4 macro file with an AU_ALIAS usage in it like this:
>
> AU_ALIAS([BNV_HAVE_QT], [AX_HAVE_QT])
>
> If I run autoupdate on this file, that will become:
>
> AU_ALIAS([AX_HAVE_QT], [AX_HAVE_QT])
>
> This seems pointless, as now the AU_ALIAS won't do what it was originally
> meant to do anymore. Perhaps autoupdate could be updated to stop making
> this change.

It does seem counterproductive.  Unfortunately autoupdate doesn't actually
understand m4 syntax so it often runs into problems similar this one.  I'm
sure it could be improved to better handle this specific case, though.

But for the same reason, you should be able to work around the problem
just by quoting differently, for example:

  AU_ALIAS([BNV_][HAVE_QT], [AX_HAVE_QT])

Cheers,
  Nick