Re: autoreconf and gettext

[Vincent Torri]

On Tue, 31 May 2011, Eric Blake wrote:

> On 05/31/2011 01:51 AM, Vincent Torri wrote:
> > Hey,
> >
> > I have a library that is using gettext is available, that is, in
> > configure.ac, i use:
> >
> > m4_ifdef([AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION], [
> > AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.12.1])
> > ])
>
> Why force such an old version?  Most distros support at least 0.17,
> which comes with quite a few improvements over 0.12.1.

I actually do not manage that library and I just copied/pasted the code, 
but thank you for the tip.

> > Unfortunately, when I use autoreconf -f -i on a system that has no
> > gettext, there is an error saying that autopoint is not available while
> > the package is using gettext.
> >
> > How can I fix that problem ?
>
> Right now, autoreconf greps configure.ac for /^AM_GNU_GETTEXST_VERSION/,
> rather than using autoconf --trace mechanisms.  Which is unfortunate,
> because for situations like this, it gets the wrong answers.
>
> You can foil autoreconf's grep by inserting whitespace or using extra m4
> quoting, such as:
>
> m4_ifdef([AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION], [
>  AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([...])
> ])
>
> which would probably fix autoreconf on your bare-bones system, but I
> don't know if that will break the running of gettext on systems where it
> is installed.

Unfortunately, it will break if gettext is available. According to gettext 
dev, AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION must not have spaces before it.

> Ultimately, it would be super nice if we could convert autoreconf over
> to using --trace mechanisms for seeing which macros are actually called,
> rather than just grepping for magic strings.

Ok, so i will not use autoreconf for now.

thank you

Vincent Torri