--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2011-07-07  Bruno Haible  <bruno@clisp.org>
+
+	Avoid literal tabs.
+	* m4/po,m4 (AM_PO_SUBDIRS, AM_POSTPROCESS_PO_MAKEFILE): Use a shell
+	variable containing a tab instead of a literal tab.
+	Reported by Jim Meyering.
+
 2011-07-07  Bruno Haible  <bruno@clisp.org>
 
 	Comments.

--- a/m4/po.m4
+++ b/m4/po.m4
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# po.m4 serial 17 (gettext-0.18)
+# po.m4 serial 17a
 dnl Copyright (C) 1995-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 dnl This file is free software; the Free Software Foundation
 dnl gives unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it,
@@ -118,7 +118,8 @@
         if test -f "$ac_given_srcdir/$ac_dir/POTFILES.in"; then
           rm -f "$ac_dir/POTFILES"
           test -n "$as_me" && echo "$as_me: creating $ac_dir/POTFILES" || echo "creating $ac_dir/POTFILES"
-          cat "$ac_given_srcdir/$ac_dir/POTFILES.in" | sed -e "/^#/d" -e "/^[ 	]*\$/d" -e "s,.*,     $top_srcdir/& \\\\," | sed -e "\$s/\(.*\) \\\\/\1/" > "$ac_dir/POTFILES"
+          gt_tab=`printf '\t'`
+          cat "$ac_given_srcdir/$ac_dir/POTFILES.in" | sed -e "/^#/d" -e "/^[ ${gt_tab}]*\$/d" -e "s,.*,     $top_srcdir/& \\\\," | sed -e "\$s/\(.*\) \\\\/\1/" > "$ac_dir/POTFILES"
           POMAKEFILEDEPS="POTFILES.in"
           # ALL_LINGUAS, POFILES, UPDATEPOFILES, DUMMYPOFILES, GMOFILES depend
           # on $ac_dir but don't depend on user-specified configuration
@@ -254,6 +255,7 @@
   fi
 
   # A sed script that extracts the value of VARIABLE from a Makefile.
+  tab=`printf '\t'`
   sed_x_variable='
 # Test if the hold space is empty.
 x
@@ -261,9 +263,9 @@
 x
 ta
 # Yes it was empty. Look if we have the expected variable definition.
-/^[	 ]*VARIABLE[	 ]*=/{
+/^['"${tab}"' ]*VARIABLE['"${tab}"' ]*=/{
   # Seen the first line of the variable definition.
-  s/^[	 ]*VARIABLE[	 ]*=//
+  s/^['"${tab}"' ]*VARIABLE['"${tab}"' ]*=//
   ba
 }
 bd
@@ -405,14 +407,15 @@
   fi
 
   sed -e "s|@POTFILES_DEPS@|$POTFILES_DEPS|g" -e "s|@POFILES@|$POFILES|g" -e "s|@UPDATEPOFILES@|$UPDATEPOFILES|g" -e "s|@DUMMYPOFILES@|$DUMMYPOFILES|g" -e "s|@GMOFILES@|$GMOFILES|g" -e "s|@PROPERTIESFILES@|$PROPERTIESFILES|g" -e "s|@CLASSFILES@|$CLASSFILES|g" -e "s|@QMFILES@|$QMFILES|g" -e "s|@MSGFILES@|$MSGFILES|g" -e "s|@RESOURCESDLLFILES@|$RESOURCESDLLFILES|g" -e "s|@CATALOGS@|$CATALOGS|g" -e "s|@JAVACATALOGS@|$JAVACATALOGS|g" -e "s|@QTCATALOGS@|$QTCATALOGS|g" -e "s|@TCLCATALOGS@|$TCLCATALOGS|g" -e "s|@CSHARPCATALOGS@|$CSHARPCATALOGS|g" -e 's,^#distdir:,distdir:,' < "$ac_file" > "$ac_file.tmp"
+  tab=`printf '\t'`
   if grep -l '@TCLCATALOGS@' "$ac_file" > /dev/null; then
     # Add dependencies that cannot be formulated as a simple suffix rule.
     for lang in $ALL_LINGUAS; do
       frobbedlang=`echo $lang | sed -e 's/\..*$//' -e 'y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/'`
       cat >> "$ac_file.tmp" <<EOF
 $frobbedlang.msg: $lang.po
-	@echo "\$(MSGFMT) -c --tcl -d \$(srcdir) -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po"; \
-	\$(MSGFMT) -c --tcl -d "\$(srcdir)" -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po || { rm -f "\$(srcdir)/$frobbedlang.msg"; exit 1; }
+${tab}@echo "\$(MSGFMT) -c --tcl -d \$(srcdir) -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po"; \
+${tab}\$(MSGFMT) -c --tcl -d "\$(srcdir)" -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po || { rm -f "\$(srcdir)/$frobbedlang.msg"; exit 1; }
 EOF
     done
   fi
@@ -422,8 +425,8 @@
       frobbedlang=`echo $lang | sed -e 's/_/-/g' -e 's/^sr-CS/sr-SP/' -e 's/@latin$/-Latn/' -e 's/@cyrillic$/-Cyrl/' -e 's/^sr-SP$/sr-SP-Latn/' -e 's/^uz-UZ$/uz-UZ-Latn/'`
       cat >> "$ac_file.tmp" <<EOF
 $frobbedlang/\$(DOMAIN).resources.dll: $lang.po
-	@echo "\$(MSGFMT) -c --csharp -d \$(srcdir) -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po -r \$(DOMAIN)"; \
-	\$(MSGFMT) -c --csharp -d "\$(srcdir)" -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po -r "\$(DOMAIN)" || { rm -f "\$(srcdir)/$frobbedlang.msg"; exit 1; }
+${tab}@echo "\$(MSGFMT) -c --csharp -d \$(srcdir) -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po -r \$(DOMAIN)"; \
+${tab}\$(MSGFMT) -c --csharp -d "\$(srcdir)" -l $lang $srcdirpre$lang.po -r "\$(DOMAIN)" || { rm -f "\$(srcdir)/$frobbedlang.msg"; exit 1; }
 EOF
     done
   fi