I updated Octave's copy of the bootstrap script from gnulib's version today and hit an error because gnulib_path was set to ''. The code in the bootstrap script for this is
git_modules_config () { test -f .gitmodules && git config --file .gitmodules "$@" } gnulib_path=`git_modules_config submodule.gnulib.path` : ${gnulib_path=gnulib} I don't have a .gitmodules file, so git_modules_config doesn't return anything and gnulib_path is set to '' before the : ${gnulib_path=gnulib} line, so then it remains ''. Shouldn't this be : ${gnulib_path:=gnulib} (or equivalent if this method is not sufficiently portable) so that it will be set to the default value if $gnulib_path is unset or empty, not just if it is unset? It looks to me that $gnulib_path will always be set, to the default value of "gnulib" will never be used. jwe