I asked about this a whil ago, but since I didn't receive any comments, I'm asking again.
bash's behaviour with regards to the 'set' builtin has changed in 2.05: > 3. New Features in Bash > > b. When `set' is called without options, it prints function > defintions in a way that allows them to be reused as input. > This affects `declare' and `declare -p' as well. > > then look at the ansi-c quoting rules section. This apparently lead to a broken config.cache when using bash 2.05 (not sure which version of autoconf): > CONFIG.CACHE > ============== > *** bash_204\config.cache Sat Sep 1 17:25:12 2001 > --- bash_205\config.cache Sat Sep 1 17:32:38 2001 > *************** > *** 115 **** > ! ac_cv_path_install=${ac_cv_path_install='ginstall -c'} > --- 115 ---- > ! ac_cv_path_install=${ac_cv_path_install=$'ginstall -c'} > *************** > *** 119 **** > ! ac_cv_prog_CPP=${ac_cv_prog_CPP='gcc -E'} > --- 119 ---- > ! ac_cv_prog_CPP=${ac_cv_prog_CPP=$'gcc -E'} > *************** > *** 121 **** > ! ac_cv_prog_LN_S=${ac_cv_prog_LN_S='cp -p'} > --- 121 ---- > ! ac_cv_prog_LN_S=${ac_cv_prog_LN_S=$'cp -p'} > *************** > *** 123 **** > ! ac_cv_prog_YACC=${ac_cv_prog_YACC='bison -y'} > --- 123 ---- > ! ac_cv_prog_YACC=${ac_cv_prog_YACC=$'bison -y'} What I wanted to know is whether or not this is likely to affect current autotools (I don't have a version of bash 2.05 installed, so I can't check myself)? If so, it will need to be fixed; if not, it is probably still worth mentioning in the autoconf manual's section on portable shell programming.