Re: gnulib and gettextize

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> what is the
> recommended way to use AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external], ...), gnulib-tool,
> and autopoint/autoreconf in such a way that you don't get the
> following files into your m4 directory afterwards?
> 
>    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

Assuming aclocal-1.9 or newer, I think we could remove these files
from the modules/gettext description.

-> Can we assume automake-1.9 or newer with gnulib? It was released
  two years ago and has seen numerous bugfix releases since then.

But then there is Claudio Fontana, who asked for
  AM_CPPFLAGS += -I$(top_builddir)/intl
so that he can continue shipping the intl/ directory; in this case,
the AM_GNU_GETTEXT invocation needs to be different, and the list of
*.m4 files needs to be complete.

This suggests that we might have two gettext modules: A 'gettext-external'
and a 'gettext-included'. Which brings up the question that always occurs
at some point in a system with dependencies:

-> Should gnulib-tool support "alternative modules", each of them satisfying
  a certain dependency? For example, 'error' depends on 'gettext', but
  'gettext' is one of two or more alternatives.

Another problem is what to do with the second argument of AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
Question to the autoconf experts: Is it possible to write a macro
AM_GETTEXT_NEED_NGETTEXT such that whenever a user writes
   AM_GETTEXT_NEED_NGETTEXT
   AM_GNU_GETTEXT
or
   AM_GNU_GETTEXT
   AM_GETTEXT_NEED_NGETTEXT
the AM_GNU_GETTEXT macro "knows" that a AM_GETTEXT_NEED_NGETTEXT invocation
exists elsewhere? So, a kind of "backward propagation"?

Bruno