Re: [Bug-gnulib] autoconf syntax (was: SPACE-before-TAB nits in getloadavg.m4 and lib-ld.m4)

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:

> Perhaps we should add a new quadrigraph, "@HT@" say, that Autoconf
> expands to a tab.  That way, we could write things like this:
>
> IFS="${IFS= @address@hidden"
> s/address@hidden@ address@hidden@ ]*/ /g

IMO autoconf should interfere with shell script writing as little as
possible. The confusion with the brackets is already trouble enough.

I mean, it's possible to find different syntaxes for shell scripts
at will. I could even reformulate
      IFS="     "
in XML like this:
      <assignment variable="IFS">
        <string>
          <literal " ">
          <literal "\u0009">
        </string>
      </assignment>
but this is useless because the shell script syntax people are _used_to_
is the one with brackets and tabs and without quadrigraphs or XML tags.

Bruno