"perl boot" fails with "error: FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT: requires literal arguments"

When executing 'perl boot' as indicated in the build guide it fails with the following output:

Creating libraries/array/ghc.mk
...

Creating libraries/xhtml/GNUmakefile
Booting .
configure.ac:715: error: FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT: requires literal arguments
aclocal.m4:143: FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT is expanded from...
configure.ac:715: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
configure.ac:715: error: FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT: requires literal arguments
aclocal.m4:143: FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT is expanded from...
configure.ac:715: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
autoreconf: /usr/bin/autoconf failed with exit status: 1
Running autoreconf failed with exitcode 256 on dir . at boot line 50.

Searching the internet I could only find build failures by merehap: http://markmail.org/message/vqyub65wxjykbup4 and a similar error in MacPorts http://trac.macports.org/ticket/25520

Line 715 of configure.ac reads: FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT(void *)

The problem seems to be with autoconf. AS_LITERAL_IF macro (used by FP_CHECK_ALIGNMENT) seems to have changed it's behaviour in version 2.66 to be more conservative with regard to shell indirection.

I don't have any experience with autoconf, but it seems that the problem could be that the asterisk is interpreted as a shell indirection.

I have tried with versions 2.66 and 2.67 of autoconf.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	6.12.3
Type	Bug
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	normal
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Build System
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