Use a Python script to create "empty" indexes. This solves Guido's

corrupted file problem and avoids the shell escape interpretation
portability problem.  ;-(  See comments at top of newind.py for an
explanation.

Doc/Makefile

@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@ DOCDESTDIR=	$LIBDEST/doc
 EMACS=		emacs
 PYTHON=		python
 MAKEINFO=	makeinfo
+# When debugging partparse.py, make this the pyc file:
 PARTPARSEOBJ=	partparse.pyc
 PARTPARSE=	$(PYTHON) $(PARTPARSEOBJ)
 
@@ -163,8 +164,8 @@ LIBFILES = lib.tex \
 
 # Library document
 lib.dvi: modindex.py indfix.py $(LIBFILES)
-	echo '\\begin{theindex}\end{theindex}' >$*.ind
-	echo '\\begin{theindex}\label{modindex}\end{theindex}' >mod$*.ind
+	./newind.py >$*.ind
+	./newind.py modindex >mod$*.ind
 	$(LATEX) $*
 	./modindex.py mod$*.idx
 	./fix_hack $*.idx
@@ -180,7 +181,7 @@ tut.dvi: tut.tex
 # Extending & Embedding, Python/C API documents.
 # Done this way to avoid repeated command sets.
 .tex.dvi:
-	echo '\\''begin{theindex}\end{theindex}' >$*.ind
+	./newind.py >$*.ind
 	$(LATEX) $*
 	./fix_hack $*.idx
 	$(MAKEINDEX) $*.idx

Doc/newind.py

+#! /usr/bin/env python
+
+"""Really nasty little script to create an empty, labeled index on stdout.
+
+Do it this way since some shells seem to work badly (and differently) with
+the leading '\b' for the first output line.  Specifically, /bin/sh on
+Solaris doesn't seem to get it right.  Once the quoting works there, it
+doesn't work on Linux any more.  ;-(
+"""
+__version__ = '$Revision$'
+#  $Source$
+
+import sys
+
+if sys.argv[1:]:
+    label = sys.argv[1]
+else:
+    label = "genindex"
+
+print "\\begin{theindex}"
+print "\\label{%s}" % label
+print "\\end{theindex}"

Doc/tools/newind.py

+#! /usr/bin/env python
+
+"""Really nasty little script to create an empty, labeled index on stdout.
+
+Do it this way since some shells seem to work badly (and differently) with
+the leading '\b' for the first output line.  Specifically, /bin/sh on
+Solaris doesn't seem to get it right.  Once the quoting works there, it
+doesn't work on Linux any more.  ;-(
+"""
+__version__ = '$Revision$'
+#  $Source$
+
+import sys
+
+if sys.argv[1:]:
+    label = sys.argv[1]
+else:
+    label = "genindex"
+
+print "\\begin{theindex}"
+print "\\label{%s}" % label
+print "\\end{theindex}"