Error running configure for CVS atk

[Ron Steinke <rsteinke w-link net>]

When I try to build atk from CVS, configure gives the following error:

./configure: line 5864: syntax error near unexpected token ``(a'
./configure: line 5864: `  case `(ac_space=' '; set | grep ac_space) 2>&1` in'

The surrounding code is:

# The following way of writing the cache mishandles newlines in values,
# but we know of no workaround that is simple, portable, and efficient.
# So, don't put newlines in cache variables' values.
# Ultrix sh set writes to stderr and can't be redirected directly,
# and sets the high bit in the cache file unless we assign to the vars.
(set) 2>&1 |
  case `(ac_space=' '; set | grep ac_space) 2>&1` in
  *ac_space=\ *)
    # `set' does not quote correctly, so add quotes (double-quote substitution
    # turns \\\\ into \\, and sed turns \\ into \).
    sed -n \
      -e "s/'/'\\\\''/g" \
      -e "s/^\\([a-zA-Z0-9_]*_cv_[a-zA-Z0-9_]*\\)=\\(.*\\)/\\1=\${\\1='\\2'}/p"
    ;;
  *)
    # `set' quotes correctly as required by POSIX, so do not add quotes.
    sed -n -e 's/^\([a-zA-Z0-9_]*_cv_[a-zA-Z0-9_]*\)=\(.*\)/\1=${\1=\2}/p'
    ;;
  esac >> confcache
if cmp -s $cache_file confcache; then
  :
else
  if test -w $cache_file; then
    echo "updating cache $cache_file"
    cat confcache > $cache_file
  else
    echo "not updating unwritable cache $cache_file"
  fi
fi
rm -f confcache

Similar code appears in the configure for pango (and probably glib, I haven't checked)
and works fine. What's going on?

Ron Steinke