Re: emacs Shell mode vs AC_CHECK_PROG(EMACS, ...)

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    I like to do my builds of almost anything from source under emacs Shell
    mode.  But emacs Shell mode sets the environment variable EMACS to
    "t".

      This causes the output of autoconf's AC_CHECK_PROG(EMACS, ...)
    to set EMACS="t", with the result that in any Makefile generated from
    EMACS = @EMACS@ in Makefile.in end up with the makefile variable EMACS
    set to "t".

    One example where this is a problem is the current (Sept 10) CVS
    version of gnuplot.

For a short-term correction, I think the easiest way is to change
Autoconf to ignore a value of `t' for this environment variable.
Autoconf maintainers, what do you think?

For longer term, perhaps the best thing is to change Emacs to use a
different environment variable.  Alas, I don't remember what software
checks that environment variable, or the motive for binding it.

Is it Bash?  I have cc'd the Bash maintainer so he can answer.