Re: gnulib and gettextize

[Paul Eggert]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

>>    glibc2.m4 intdiv0.m4 inttypes-h.m4 inttypes-pri.m4 lcmessage.m4
>>    lock.m4 printf-posix.m4 size_max.m4 uintmax_t.m4 ulonglong.m4
>>    visibility.m4 xsize.m4
>> 
>> These files are unnecessary in coreutils, because of the [external],
>> and yet they're listed in modules/gettext
>
> Yes. How could this be fixed? If we put the AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external],...)
> invocation into the gnulib module description, how do people specify
> the arguments passed to AM_GNU_GETTEXT?

Sorry, I'm confused.  The gnulib module description already says
AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]).

Or are you talking about the 2nd arg?  E.g., coreutils/configure.ac
has AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external], [need-formatstring-macros]).  If the
2nd arg is the issue, I suggest that the gettext module be changed to
specify AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external], [need-formatstring-macros]).  I
don't think anybody outside of gettext will care about this change,
other than being gratified that all those .m4 files are now
unnecessary and can be removed from the Files: section of
modules/gettext.  Also, I think nobody will care that gnulib specifies
need-formatstring-macros rather than the weaker need-ngettext.

>> It also comments out this line:
>> 
>> AM_CPPFLAGS += -I$(top_builddir)/intl
>> 
>> to simplify the output of "make".
>
> Such a minor modification of a module description can be accommodated
> through a .diff file and the --local-dir option.

But this is inconvenient for the rest of us.  As far as I know, nobody
uses intl/* any more (except maybe gettext itself).

If it is still important to support intl/* for some reason, how about
if we create a new module gettext-intl and put the AM_CPPFLAGS line
into this new module, which depends on gettext?  Then the 'gettext'
module will be more useful for most projects, and anybody who needs
-I.../intl can use 'gettext-intl'.