--- /usr/bin/gear-sh-functions-	2016-02-02 15:03:33.000000000 +0000
+++ /usr/bin/gear-sh-functions	2016-03-08 11:29:46.289625374 +0000
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ uninstall_cleanup_handler()
 # 2ns arg is the name of variable that contains the value to be assigned.
 set_var_value()
 {
-	eval "$1=\"\$$2\""
+	eval "$1=\"\${$2-}\""
 }
 
 lineno=
@@ -444,6 +444,7 @@ disable_specsubst=
 get_specsubst_from_rules()
 {
 	if [ -z "$disable_specsubst" ]; then
+		local specsubst=
 		get_uniq_directive_from_rules specsubst specsubst
 		if [ -n "$specsubst" ]; then
 			[ -z "$(printf %s "$specsubst" |LANG=C tr -d '[:alnum:]_[:space:]')" ] ||