The check for solaris 'print' causes significant problems on a linux machine
with dash as /bin/sh since it triggers the execution of "print" which on some 
linux systems is a perl script which is part of mailcap. Worse, this perl 
script calls "which file" and if successful ignores the path file was found 
in and just runs "file" without a path. Each exection causes PATH to be searched.

Simply assuming the shell's printf function works cuts out all the fork overhead
and when parallel tasks are running, this overhead appears to be significant.

RP
2015/11/28
Upstream-Status: Inappropriate

Index: autoconf-2.69/lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4
===================================================================
--- autoconf-2.69.orig/lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4
+++ autoconf-2.69/lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4
@@ -1045,40 +1045,8 @@ m4_defun([_AS_ECHO_PREPARE],
 [[as_nl='
 '
 export as_nl
-# Printing a long string crashes Solaris 7 /usr/bin/printf.
-as_echo='\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'
-as_echo=$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo
-as_echo=$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo$as_echo
-# Prefer a ksh shell builtin over an external printf program on Solaris,
-# but without wasting forks for bash or zsh.
-if test -z "$BASH_VERSION$ZSH_VERSION" \
-    && (test "X`print -r -- $as_echo`" = "X$as_echo") 2>/dev/null; then
-  as_echo='print -r --'
-  as_echo_n='print -rn --'
-elif (test "X`printf %s $as_echo`" = "X$as_echo") 2>/dev/null; then
-  as_echo='printf %s\n'
-  as_echo_n='printf %s'
-else
-  if test "X`(/usr/ucb/echo -n -n $as_echo) 2>/dev/null`" = "X-n $as_echo"; then
-    as_echo_body='eval /usr/ucb/echo -n "$][1$as_nl"'
-    as_echo_n='/usr/ucb/echo -n'
-  else
-    as_echo_body='eval expr "X$][1" : "X\\(.*\\)"'
-    as_echo_n_body='eval
-      arg=$][1;
-      case $arg in @%:@(
-      *"$as_nl"*)
-	expr "X$arg" : "X\\(.*\\)$as_nl";
-	arg=`expr "X$arg" : ".*$as_nl\\(.*\\)"`;;
-      esac;
-      expr "X$arg" : "X\\(.*\\)" | tr -d "$as_nl"
-    '
-    export as_echo_n_body
-    as_echo_n='sh -c $as_echo_n_body as_echo'
-  fi
-  export as_echo_body
-  as_echo='sh -c $as_echo_body as_echo'
-fi
+as_echo='printf %s\n'
+as_echo_n='printf %s'
 ]])# _AS_ECHO_PREPARE