diff --git a/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/VERSION b/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/VERSION
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b1bd38b62a0800a4f6a80c34e21c5acffae52c7e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/VERSION
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+13
diff --git a/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/configure.ac b/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/configure.ac
index a82405fee432f741394a0c116c9155115238a368..cb89a5e8ec6eed7c101e67c8c473887b83cbbccb 100644
--- a/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/configure.ac
+++ b/bundles/stdcompat/stdcompat-current/configure.ac
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-AC_INIT([[stdcompat]], [m4_esyscmd([cat VERSION])],
+AC_INIT([[stdcompat]], m4_esyscmd([tr -d '\n' <VERSION]),
   [[Thierry.Martinez@inria.fr]], [[stdcompat]],
   [[https://github.com/thierry.martinez/stdcompat/]])
 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])