re-apply r29608 and fix the broken configure test that broke worse with the

patch.  See ticket #3885, comment 10 for an explination of why calling
_STRINGIFY on something that's not a numerical constant is always a bad idea.

This commit was SVN r29613.

The following SVN revision numbers were found above:
  r29608 --> open-mpi/ompi@b71bd51cdd

config/opal_check_compiler_version.m4

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ AC_DEFUN([OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER_VERSION_ID],
     OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER(FAMILYID)
     OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER_STRINGIFY(FAMILYNAME)
     OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER(VERSION)
-    OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER_STRINGIFY(VERSION_STR)
+    OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER_STRING(VERSION_STR)
 ])dnl
 
 
@@ -57,6 +57,38 @@ int main (int argc, char * argv[])
                        [The compiler $lower which OMPI was built with])
 ])dnl
 
+AC_DEFUN([OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER_STRING], [
+    lower=m4_tolower($1)
+    AC_CACHE_CHECK([for compiler $lower], opal_cv_compiler_[$1],
+    [
+            CPPFLAGS_orig=$CPPFLAGS
+            CPPFLAGS="-I${top_ompi_srcdir}/ompi/include $CPPFLAGS"
+            AC_TRY_RUN([
+#include <stdio.h>
+#include <stdlib.h>
+#include "mpi_portable_platform.h"
+
+int main (int argc, char * argv[])
+{
+    FILE * f;
+    f=fopen("conftestval", "w");
+    if (!f) exit(1);
+    fprintf (f, "%s", PLATFORM_COMPILER_$1);
+    return 0;
+}
+            ], [
+                eval opal_cv_compiler_$1=`cat conftestval`;
+            ], [
+                eval opal_cv_compiler_$1=UNKNOWN
+            ], [
+                eval opal_cv_compiler_$1=UNKNOWN
+            ])
+            CPPFLAGS=$CPPFLAGS_orig
+    ])
+    AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([OPAL_BUILD_PLATFORM_COMPILER_$1], $opal_cv_compiler_[$1],
+                       [The compiler $lower which OMPI was built with])
+])dnl
+
 
 AC_DEFUN([OPAL_CHECK_COMPILER_STRINGIFY], [
     lower=m4_tolower($1)