From: Eric Backus <ericb@lsid.hp.com>
Subject: autoconf 2.12
To: bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 96 14:12:53 PST

I recently got autoconf-2.12.tar.gz from prep.ai.mit.edu.  I was able
to configure, compile, and install this package successfully on my HP
725/100 running HP-UX 9.05.  Thanks!

I ran into one problem with autoconf 2.12 that was not there in
autoconf 2.11.  When configuring the package, I got this output:

    creating cache ./config.cache
    checking for gm4... no
    checking for gnum4... no
    checking for m4... /usr/gnu/bin/m4
    checking for mawk... no
    checking for gawk... gawk
    checking for perl... /usr/gnu/bin/perl
    checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/gnu/bin/install -c
    ./configure: sh internal 2K buffer overflow
    updating cache ./config.cache
    creating ./config.status
    creating Makefile
    creating testsuite/Makefile

Note the "./configure: sh internal 2K buffer overflow" error message.
It turns out that the 2.12 configure script uses a construct that 2.11
didn't, and which causes an error in my shell.  Fortunately, the only
bad thing caused by this error is the config.cache file is left empty.


The offending lines in the configure script are (starting at line 758
of the configure script):

    (set) 2>&1 |
      case `(ac_space=' '; set) 2>&1` in	    <-- This is causing the problem
      *ac_space=\ *)
	# `set' does not quote correctly, so add quotes (double-quote substitution
	# turns \\\\ into \\, and sed turns \\ into \).
	sed -n \
	  -e "s/'/'\\\\''/g" \
	  -e "s/^\\([a-zA-Z0-9_]*_cv_[a-zA-Z0-9_]*\\)=\\(.*\\)/\\1=\${\\1='\\2'}/p"
	;;
      *)
	# `set' quotes correctly as required by POSIX, so do not add quotes.
	sed -n -e 's/^\([a-zA-Z0-9_]*_cv_[a-zA-Z0-9_]*\)=\(.*\)/\1=${\1=\2}/p'
	;;
      esac >> confcache


Apparently the call to "set" in the case statement word is causing a
buffer to overflow in my shell.  I tried experimenting with different
shells on my system, and found:

    /bin/ksh		ok
    /bin/posix/sh	ok
    /usr/gnu/bin/bash	ok
    /bin/sh		buffer overflow

The following diff fixes the problem on my machine, but I don't know
if it would break the test for non-POSIX quoting.  However, the real
fix will of course have to be in one of the autoconf m4 files rather
than in configure, since configure is created from them.

*** configure~	Sun Dec  1 15:50:56 1996
--- configure	Mon Dec  2 14:06:32 1996
***************
*** 756,762 ****
  # Ultrix sh set writes to stderr and can't be redirected directly,
  # and sets the high bit in the cache file unless we assign to the vars.
  (set) 2>&1 |
!   case `(ac_space=' '; set) 2>&1` in
    *ac_space=\ *)
      # `set' does not quote correctly, so add quotes (double-quote substitution
      # turns \\\\ into \\, and sed turns \\ into \).
--- 756,762 ----
  # Ultrix sh set writes to stderr and can't be redirected directly,
  # and sets the high bit in the cache file unless we assign to the vars.
  (set) 2>&1 |
!   case `(ac_space=' '; set | grep ac_space) 2>&1` in
    *ac_space=\ *)
      # `set' does not quote correctly, so add quotes (double-quote substitution
      # turns \\\\ into \\, and sed turns \\ into \).

-- 
			Eric Backus <ericb@lsid.hp.com>
			http://labejb.lsid.hp.com/
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			(206) 335-2495