Re: getprogname and libtool

[Bruno Haible]

Daiki Ueno wrote:
> > The consequence is that in packages that use GNU libtool, such programs will
> > print "lt-prog" instead of "prog" in their usage message and other messages.
> > This will disturb
> >   * the hacker who uses the programs before doing "make install",
> >   * the test suite.
> 
> Sorry, I'm skeptical about this.  Would it be useful to test the
> getprogname functionality from outside of test-getprogname.c?

Here's what I mean: In the GNU gettext package, currently, after having built
it from source, I can do

  $ cd gettext-tools/src
  $ ./xgettext --help | head -n 1
  Aufruf: ./xgettext [OPTION] [EINGABEDATEI]...

When I do the replacements (below) to get rid of the use of the module 
'progname',
I get

  $ cd gettext-tools/src
  $ ./xgettext --help | head -n 1
  Aufruf: lt-xgettext [OPTION] [EINGABEDATEI]...

As you can see,
  - The usage message now doesn't show the path of the executable, only its
    basename. I view this as a regression, because power users often adjust
    PATH and then occasionally by mistake invoke a program from an unintended
    location. (This is reiterating my point 1) from
    https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2006-01/msg00122.html.)
  - The basename now starts with "lt-".

In summary, I like Pino's 'getprogname' module because it nicely solves the
problems he listed in
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2016-03/msg00048.html.

But I disagree with the idea that the 'program_name' module and the
set_program_name() function should be deprecated, as expressed in
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2016-09/msg00007.html

Bruno


diff --git a/gettext-tools/src/xgettext.c b/gettext-tools/src/xgettext.c
index f848d76..4075caa 100644
--- a/gettext-tools/src/xgettext.c
+++ b/gettext-tools/src/xgettext.c
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
 #include "str-list.h"
 #include "error.h"
 #include "error-progname.h"
-#include "progname.h"
+#include "getprogname.h"
 #include "relocatable.h"
 #include "basename.h"
 #include "xerror.h"
@@ -342,7 +342,6 @@ main (int argc, char *argv[])
   size_t i;
 
   /* Set program name for messages.  */
-  set_program_name (argv[0]);
   error_print_progname = maybe_print_progname;
 
 #ifdef HAVE_SETLOCALE
@@ -676,7 +675,7 @@ main (int argc, char *argv[])
   /* Version information requested.  */
   if (do_version)
     {
-      printf ("%s (GNU %s) %s\n", basename (program_name), PACKAGE, VERSION);
+      printf ("%s (GNU %s) %s\n", getprogname (), PACKAGE, VERSION);
       /* xgettext: no-wrap */
       printf (_("Copyright (C) %s Free Software Foundation, Inc.\n\
 License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later 
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>\n\
@@ -801,14 +800,14 @@ xgettext cannot work without keywords to look for"));
 Cannot convert from \"%s\" to \"%s\". %s relies on iconv(), \
 and iconv() does not support this conversion."),
                xgettext_global_source_encoding, po_charset_utf8,
-               basename (program_name));
+               getprogname ());
       xgettext_global_source_iconv = cd;
 #else
       error (EXIT_FAILURE, 0, _("\
 Cannot convert from \"%s\" to \"%s\". %s relies on iconv(). \
 This version was built without iconv()."),
              xgettext_global_source_encoding, po_charset_utf8,
-             basename (program_name));
+             getprogname ());
 #endif
     }
 
@@ -1030,12 +1029,12 @@ usage (int status)
 {
   if (status != EXIT_SUCCESS)
     fprintf (stderr, _("Try '%s --help' for more information.\n"),
-             program_name);
+             getprogname ());
   else
     {
       printf (_("\
 Usage: %s [OPTION] [INPUTFILE]...\n\
-"), program_name);
+"), getprogname ());
       printf ("\n");
       printf (_("\
 Extract translatable strings from given input files.\n\