gettext: rebuilding .po files too often?

[Paul D. Smith]

Hi all.

I've finished updating the GNU make source tree to all the latest
autotools, including the latest Gettext (with "external").  I like it!

However, there is one kind of annoying thing.  Whenever I get a new
version of my source from CVS and make it the first time, it rebuilds
all my .po files.  I have two problems with this:

 1) It's slow.  There's nothing _I_, as a maintainer, can do about these
    changes to the .po files, so why should I have to do this each time?

 2) It causes lots of unnecessary updates in my CVS files.  Whenever I
    run "cvs commit" from the top of my try it's trying to check in
    newer versions of all my .po files.  This is really not necessary
    since I only need to provide translators with an updated version of
    the .po files when I make a release; changing the line numbers in
    all the .po files over and over on "intermediate" versions is just a
    waste of time and space on the CVS server.

Looked at another way, the _only_ way I should be checking in changes to
.po files is when the translating team notifies me that they have a new
version and I download it.  I never really want to check in these
intermediate versions that are created automatically.

I saw some code in Makefile.in.in which seemed to be trying to update
the .po files at dist creation time: to me that is exactly right, rather
than what Gettext is doing now.

In that case the scenario would go: I make my changes, over time.  None
of these results in new .po files being created.  When I'm ready to
release I do a "make dist" and the new .po files and .pot file are
created and put into the distribution tarballs.  I _don't_ check those
into CVS.  The translators get a copy of my distribution, see the new
.po files, edit them maybe, and submit them to the translation team
which notifies me, I dowload the new files and check _those_ into CVS.

To me that seems like the best way.  Is there something I'm overlooking
that would allow this to happen--or cause it to not work well?

Thanks...

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist