Re: [PATCH] gnulib-tool: do not use $(top_srcdir) unquoted; may be tainted

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Jim,

* Jim Meyering wrote on Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 09:02:51PM CET:
> [ along the way I noticed that my gnulib-tool patch is wrong,
>   since single quotes in the context of a Makefile dependency
>   list are interpreted literally ]

Indeed.

> But I did find a bug to fix... in automake.

> While $(top_srcdir) values usually look like ../src,
> but sometimes they are full, absolute names.  It's the latter
> case I was trying to protect against with the gnulib-tool patch.
> 
> For the record, you can cause trouble by building with a
> source directory name containing e.g., a space, and invoking
> configure via an absolute name.

Been there before, tried to push the exact patch you propose.
It doesn't help but cover up.  If the corresponding code complains,
the user used a path he shouldn't have used.  "Don't do that when
it hurts."

It would be an improvement if the sanity.m4 code produced a more
helpful error, though.

Cheers,
Ralf