autoconf weirdness

[Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>]

Hello,

I am trying to update configure in shellutils-2.0.11 with
the woody version of autoconf.

First I had to rename instances of AC_SHELL_IFELSE to AS_IF.

However, now I get this weird first few lines:

--- cut ---
#! /bin/sh
# Guess values for system-dependent variables and create Makefiles.
# Generated by GNU Autoconf 2.53.
#
# Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
# Free Software Foundation, Inc.
# This configure script is free software; the Free Software Foundation
# gives unlimited permission to copy, distribute and modify it.
 ECHO_N= ECHO_C='
' ECHO_T='      ' ;;
  *c*,*  ) ECHO_N=-n ECHO_C= ECHO_T= ;;
  *)       ECHO_N= ECHO_C='\c' ECHO_T= ;;
esac


if expr a : '\(a\)' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  as_expr=expr
else
  as_expr=false
fi

[...]
--- cut ---

/bin/sh doesn't like this; it gets confused with the quoting!

cd builddir && CFLAGS="-g -O2 -DSYSLOG_SUCCESS -DSYSLOG_FAILURE -DSYSLOG_NON_ROOT" LDFLAGS= \
	../configure --build=i386-linux \
	--host=i386-linux --prefix=/usr 
../configure: line 10: syntax error near unexpected token `;'
../configure: line 10: `' ECHO_T='	' ;;'
make: *** [build-stamp] Error 2

Any ideas why autoconf is generating such bad code, for what something
that looks like it should be standard for all autoconf generated code?
-- 
Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>