Re: gnulib-tool --with-tests and autopoint

[Bruno Haible]

Eric Blake wrote:
> I tried './gnulib-tool --with-tests --test closein', but it failed with:
> 
> executing autopoint --force
> autopoint: *** The AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declaration in your configure.ac
>               file requires the infrastructure from gettext-0.17 but this
> version               is older. Please upgrade to gettext-0.17 or newer.
> autopoint: *** Stop.
> 
> Is there any reason why we can't permit older gettext installation when
> running unit tests?

The AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.17]) line in modules/gettext has the purpose of
ensuring that when a package uses gnulib, and the package has some po/
directories, the po/Makefile.in.in infrastructure fits together with the
m4/gettext.m4 etc. installed by gnulib.

You're right: When creating a testdir that happens to have no po/ directories
(i.e. no --po-base option specified), the precaution is not necessary, and
actually, even running 'autopoint' is not necessary.

OTOH, if you are on a machine without newest gettext, there are chances that
you also don't have the newest autoconf, automake, and m4 installed. For
this reason, gnulib-tool's --test option is only a shorthand for
--create-testdir following by running the tests in the generated directory.
So, if you're on a poorly equipped machine, the recommendation is to create
the testdir on a completely equipped development machine and transfer it
to the target machine.

Bruno