I use autoconf for GNU Parallel. $ autoconf --version autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.69
If I create a user with a homedir: "/home/ space " and use ./configure --prefix "$HOME" Then "make install" fails: make[3]: Entering directory '/home/ space /parallel-20200922/src' rm /home/ space /bin/sem || true rm: cannot remove '/home/': Is a directory rm: cannot remove 'space': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove '/bin/sem': No such file or directory ln -s parallel /home/ space /bin/sem ln: target '/bin/sem' is not a directory The problem is most likely never going to happen on real Unix systems, but I have seen similar problems on Microsoft Windows where dirs with spaces are quite common. I have not determined the root cause, but I think you may have problems if the dirs contain multiple consecutive spaces. /Ole