Re: surprising behavior of gettext module

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Ben.

> The gettext module says in its configure.ac section that it
> invokes AM_GNU_GETTEXT:
> 
>     configure.ac:
>     AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
>     AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.18.1])
> 
> This would ordinarily lead one to believe that it is not
> necessary to invoke AM_GNU_GETTEXT elsewhere in configure.ac, but
> gnulib-tool filters it out:
> 
>         func_get_autoconf_snippet "$module" \
>           | sed -e '/^$/d;' -e 's/^/  /' \
>                 -e 's/AM_GNU_GETTEXT(\[external\])/dnl you must add 
> AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) or similar to configure.ac./' \
>                 -e "$sed_replace_build_aux"

Indeed. This is old code, from 2004-08-12 already. Apparently it was
considered that AM_GNU_GETTEXT should be more prominently visible; or maybe
it was because some packages were including the intl/ directory.

> This is surprising behavior.  I would suggest that the gettext
> module shouldn't list AM_GNU_GETTEXT in its configure.ac section,

If we did this, then 'gnulib-tool --create-testdir' would not work right for
quotearg-tests and similar.

> or that at least it should mention in a Notice that it doesn't
> really invoke AM_GNU_GETTEXT.

A good suggestion. Thanks. Done:


2011-04-16  Bruno Haible  <address@hidden>

        gettext: Clarify the needed programmer actions.
        * modules/gettext (Notice): New field.
        Suggested by Ben Pfaff <address@hidden>.

--- modules/gettext.orig        Sat Apr 16 12:13:16 2011
+++ modules/gettext     Sat Apr 16 12:12:58 2011
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 Description:
 Translate messages to user's native language.
 
+Notice:
+You must add an invocation of AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) to configure.ac.
+
 Files:
 m4/codeset.m4
 m4/fcntl-o.m4

-- 
In memoriam Iqbal Masih <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqbal_Masih>