--- a/aclocal.m4
+++ b/aclocal.m4
@@ -339,12 +339,13 @@
 dnl The following test is from Karl Berry's Kpathseach library.  I'm
 dnl including it here in case we someday want to make the use of
 dnl kpathsea optional.
-
-# Some BSD putenv's, e.g., FreeBSD, do malloc/free's on the environment.
-# This test program is due to Mike Hibler <mike@cs.utah.edu>.
-# We don't actually need to run this if we don't have putenv, but it
-# doesn't hurt.
-AC_MSG_CHECKING(whether putenv uses malloc)
+dnl
+dnl Some BSD putenv's, e.g., FreeBSD, do malloc/free's on the environment.
+dnl This test program is due to Mike Hibler <mike@cs.utah.edu>.
+dnl We don't actually need to run this if we don't have putenv, but it
+dnl doesn't hurt.
+AC_DEFUN(OCTAVE_SMART_PUTENV,
+[AC_MSG_CHECKING(whether putenv uses malloc)
 AC_CACHE_VAL(octave_cv_func_putenv_malloc,
 [AC_TRY_RUN([
 #define VAR	"YOW_VAR"
@@ -400,4 +401,4 @@
 AC_MSG_RESULT($octave_cv_func_putenv_malloc)
 if test $octave_cv_func_putenv_malloc = yes; then
   AC_DEFINE(SMART_PUTENV)
-fi
+fi])

--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 ### along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
 ### Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.
 
-AC_REVISION($Revision: 1.146 $)
+AC_REVISION($Revision: 1.147 $)
 AC_PREREQ(2.0)
 AC_INIT(src/octave.cc)
 AC_CONFIG_HEADER(config.h)
@@ -643,6 +643,8 @@
 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(mkdir rmdir rename umask)
 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(sigaction sigprocmask sigpending sigsuspend)
 
+OCTAVE_SMART_PUTENV
+
 AC_CHECK_LIB(dl, dlopen)
 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(dlopen dlsym dlerror dlclose)