diff -u autoconf-2.13/acgeneral.m4~ autoconf-2.13/acgeneral.m4
--- autoconf-2.13/acgeneral.m4~	Wed May 15 14:47:12 2002
+++ autoconf-2.13/acgeneral.m4	Wed May 15 14:47:12 2002
@@ -2156,20 +2156,38 @@
 dnl AC_OUTPUT_MAKE_DEFS()
 define(AC_OUTPUT_MAKE_DEFS,
 [# Transform confdefs.h into DEFS.
-dnl Using a here document instead of a string reduces the quoting nightmare.
 # Protect against shell expansion while executing Makefile rules.
 # Protect against Makefile macro expansion.
-cat > conftest.defs <<\EOF
-changequote(<<, >>)dnl
-s%<<#define>> \([A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*\) *\(.*\)%-D\1=\2%g
-s%[ 	`~<<#>>$^&*(){}\\|;'"<>?]%\\&%g
-s%\[%\\&%g
-s%\]%\\&%g
-s%\$%$$%g
-changequote([, ])dnl
-EOF
-DEFS=`sed -f conftest.defs confdefs.h | tr '\012' ' '`
-rm -f conftest.defs
+#
+# If the first sed substitution is executed (which looks for macros that
+# take arguments), then we branch to the quote section.  Otherwise,
+# look for a macro that doesn't take arguments.
+cat >confdef2opt.sed <<\_ACEOF
+changequote(<<, >>)dnl
+t clear
+: clear
+s,^[ 	]*#[ 	]*define[ 	][ 	]*\([^ 	(][^ 	(]*([^)]*)\)[ 	]*\(.*\),-D\1=\2,g
+t quote
+s,^[ 	]*#[ 	]*define[ 	][ 	]*\([^ 	][^ 	]*\)[ 	]*\(.*\),-D\1=\2,g
+t quote
+d
+: quote
+s,[ 	`~#$^&*(){}\\|;'"<>?],\\&,g
+s,\[,\\&,g
+s,\],\\&,g
+s,\$,$$,g
+p
+changequote([, ])dnl
+_ACEOF
+# We use echo to avoid assuming a particular line-breaking character.
+# The extra dot is to prevent the shell from consuming trailing
+# line-breaks from the sub-command output.  A line-break within
+# single-quotes doesn't work because, if this script is created in a
+# platform that uses two characters for line-breaks (e.g., DOS), tr
+# would break.
+ac_LF_and_DOT=`echo; echo .`
+DEFS=`sed -n -f confdef2opt.sed confdefs.h | tr "$ac_LF_and_DOT" ' .'`
+rm -f confdef2opt.sed
 ])
 
 dnl Do the variable substitutions to create the Makefiles or whatever.