Re: Why doesn't this quote properly?

[Noah Misch]

On Sat, Nov 20, 2004 at 08:55:43AM -0800, Bruce Korb wrote:
> 
> Hi Noah,
> 
> Thank you for the quoting hint.  Now, I have a follow-up question:
> How is anybody supposed to know whether/when double quoting is
> necessary?  It is because of the quoting ambiguity (ambiguity to

In general, always double-quote a macro argument that you wish to make a
literal; that is, an argument in which m4 should not expand quotation or macro
calls.  Quote an argument only once to simply protect internal commas and
unmatched parentheses.  The node ``Autoconf Language'' describes this.

It is possible to write a macro that will treat its arguments as literal; see
the node `Quotation and Nested Macros'.  Standard Autoconf macros do not do
this, probably because it reduces flexibility, and writing configure.ac is
easier if all macros quote arguments the same way.