Re: Autoconf 2.57d instability

[Eric Sunshine]

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 11:58:54 +0200 (CEST), Akim Demaille wrote:
> Could you make the test case smaller?  Are you sure all the tests were
> run with the modified m4?

I was able to narrow down the "failed with exit status: 139" error to the  
following tiny case:

AC_INIT([crystal], [1], [someone])
AC_ARG_ENABLE([cpu-specific-optimizations],
    [AC_HELP_STRING([--enable-cpu-specific-optimizations=level],
        [enable CPU-specific optimizations; recognized levels are no,
        minimum or min, maximum or max default MINIMUM; the minimum
        one processor will not work with earlier processors for example, Intel
        686-specific code will not work with a 586])],
    [], [])
AC_OUTPUT

Again, it turns out that AC_HELP_STRING() is the culprit.  This time, it  
seems to be the combination of commas and string length.  If I remove a  
couple words from the string (such as "minimum or" from the second help  
line), then the "excess arguments to m4_pushdef" error is issued instead of  
the "failed with exit status: 139" error.

I should note that invoking AS_HELP_STRING directly, instead of  
AC_HELP_STRING eliminates both crashes.  I also tried various different ways  
of quoting AC_HELP_STRING's call to AS_HELP_STRING (in general.m4) but failed  
to find one which worked.

-- ES