diff --git a/compat/fopen.c b/compat/fopen.c
index b5ca142fedf2ac..107b3e8182fd4a 100644
--- a/compat/fopen.c
+++ b/compat/fopen.c
@@ -1,14 +1,14 @@
 /*
  *  The order of the following two lines is important.
  *
- *  FREAD_READS_DIRECTORIES is undefined before including git-compat-util.h
+ *  SUPPRESS_FOPEN_REDEFINITION is defined before including git-compat-util.h
  *  to avoid the redefinition of fopen within git-compat-util.h. This is
  *  necessary since fopen is a macro on some platforms which may be set
  *  based on compiler options. For example, on AIX fopen is set to fopen64
  *  when _LARGE_FILES is defined. The previous technique of merely undefining
  *  fopen after including git-compat-util.h is inadequate in this case.
  */
-#undef FREAD_READS_DIRECTORIES
+#define SUPPRESS_FOPEN_REDEFINITION
 #include "../git-compat-util.h"
 
 FILE *git_fopen(const char *path, const char *mode)
diff --git a/git-compat-util.h b/git-compat-util.h
index bd04564a69a052..6be55cf8b39b93 100644
--- a/git-compat-util.h
+++ b/git-compat-util.h
@@ -689,10 +689,12 @@ char *gitstrdup(const char *s);
 #endif
 
 #ifdef FREAD_READS_DIRECTORIES
-#ifdef fopen
-#undef fopen
-#endif
-#define fopen(a,b) git_fopen(a,b)
+# if !defined(SUPPRESS_FOPEN_REDEFINITION)
+#  ifdef fopen
+#   undef fopen
+#  endif
+#  define fopen(a,b) git_fopen(a,b)
+# endif
 extern FILE *git_fopen(const char*, const char*);
 #endif