Re: [bug-gettext] Bug#671257: gettext: msgfmt output format prevents multiarch migration (fwd)

[Bruno Haible]

Santiago Vila wrote:
> I remember well the bug by Neil Williams:
> 
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=468209
> 
> where he asked --endianness to be documented, as he was thinking about
> using it in his embedded projects to override the current msgfmt default of
> always creating little endian .mo files.

Let me repeat: The default is that msgfmt creates .mo files in the endianness
of the platform where 'msgfmt' runs. (Otherwise, Paul Martin would not
have found a multi-arch problem.)

Neil Williams's motivation were cross-compiling situations (from x86 to
mips systems, for example). He wanted to make 'msgfmt' aware of the
target system's endianness. This has a negligible impact and is not a
good enough rationale for adding one more option to the manual.

But I find Paul Martin's rationale convincing. So I'm adding the
documentation.

Now, how to use this in the Debian build system, is your turn.

> The opinion of people in charge of multiarch is that in the long run,
> it would be much better if msgfmt's default changed in gettext to be
> little endian again.

I don't agree. Users of PowePC systems have the same right to optimized
MO files as users of x86 systems. Therefore I would like to have the
issue solved in Debian's build system. Let me know if you would need
additional targets or variables in Makefile.in.in (on top of the configure
option that I already mentioned).

Bruno