./configure misdetects SNPRINTF_RETURNS_BOGUS (was: [test failure] t4114 binary file becomes symlink)

Nicolas Sebrecht [off-list ref] writes:
 

Hum, 'rm configure ; make configure ; ./configure' give

 checking whether snprintf() and/or vsnprintf() return bogus value... yes

WTF?

It looks like some recent bug in configure.ac, as I have run
./configure without "make configure" and it had

  NO_LIBGEN_H=@NO_LIBGEN_H@
  NEEDS_RESOLV=@NEEDS_RESOLV@

  SNPRINTF_RETURNS_BOGUS=

and when I did "rm configure ; make configure ; ./configure"
it gave me

  NO_LIBGEN_H=
  NEEDS_RESOLV=

  SNPRINTF_RETURNS_BOGUS=UnfortunatelyYes

I have tried to find which commit introduced this regression.

 $ git bisect start origin v1.6.3 v1.6.3.2 -- configure.ac config.mak.in
 $ git bisect run ~/git/test.sh

finds ecc395c (Makefile: add NEEDS_LIBGEN to optionally add -lgen to
compile arguments, 2009-07-10) as a first bad commit.  But I don't see
how it could have changed it... Strange...

CC-ed Brandon Casey, author of blamed changeset, and David Syzdek who
offered at some time help with maintaining autoconf.


P.S. Perhaps it is time for creating MAINTAINERS file for git?

-- >8 --
#!/bin/bash

rm -f configure &&
make configure  &&
./configure -q  &&
grep -q "^SNPRINTF_RETURNS_BOGUS=$" config.mak.autogen

# end of test.sh
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git