Re: [PATCH] glib configure.in patches

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

Art Haas wrote:

> > > +AC_ARG_ENABLE([debug],
> > > +              AC_HELP_STRING([--enable-debug=@<:@no/minimum/yes@:>@],
> > > +	                     [turn on debugging @<:@default=$debug_default@:>@]),
> > > +	      [],
> > > +	      [enable_debug=$debug_default])
> > >      
> > Ugh, these 'quadriglyphs' are incredibly unreadable. I assume the
> > problem is that AC_HELP_STRING does multiple levels of expansion on
> > it's arguments?
> >    
>
> I guess so :-/ ...
>
> I used them so that the output of the "./configure --help"
> would still present default values with "[" and "]" ...
>
>   --enable-foo             activates foo [default=on]
>
> If a slight change wasn't unacceptable, the default values
> could come out in say "<" and ">" characters ...
>
>   --enable-foo             activates foo <default=on>
>
> ... and the quadrigraphs could be removed. As I've changed many
> configure.(in|ac) files, I don't find them that difficult to read,
> but they are off-putting at first glance.
>  
Putting a set of square brackets around the AC_HELP_STRING() macro gets 
the quoting to balance correctly (in general, autoconf uniformly strips 
off one layer of quoting from the arguments to the AC_* macros).

The following line in configure.in:
   AC_ARG_ENABLE([foo], [AC_HELP_STRING([--enable-foo], [a[b]c])])
gives the following in the help output:
 --enable-foo            a[b]c


James.

--
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