Re: when gettext is not installed error during make

[Gavin Smith]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 01:47:31PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> By chance, I don't have gettext installed, ./configure proceeds without
> complaining much, although it prints
> 
> checking whether NLS is requested... yes
> checking for msgfmt... no
> checking for gmsgfmt... :
> checking for xgettext... no
> checking for msgmerge... no
> checking for CFPreferencesCopyAppValue... no
> checking for CFLocaleCopyCurrent... no
> checking for GNU gettext in libc... yes
> checking whether to use NLS... yes
> checking where the gettext function comes from... libc
> 
> When I run make, there is an error when the po_document strings need to
> be remade because msgmerge is not installed:
> 
> make[5]: Leaving directory '/home/dumas/src/texinfo/po_document'
> : --update  --lang=ca ca.po texinfo_document.pot
> /bin/sh: 1: msgmerge: not found
> rm -f ca.gmo && : -c --statistics --verbose -o ca.gmo ca.po
> mv: cannot stat 't-ca.gmo': No such file or directory
> make[4]: *** [Makefile:190: ca.gmo] Error 1
> make[4]: Leaving directory '/home/dumas/src/texinfo/po_document'
> make[3]: *** [Makefile:3682: ../po_document/ca.gmo] Error 2
> make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/dumas/src/texinfo/tp'
> make[2]: *** [Makefile:3229: all-recursive] Error 1
> make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/dumas/src/texinfo/tp'
> make[1]: *** [Makefile:1218: all-recursive] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/dumas/src/texinfo'
> make: *** [Makefile:1155: all] Error 2
> 
> It is written in README-hacking that Gettext is used.
> 
> It is possible that Gettext is not needed in general when remaking
> Texinfo, when starting from the release.  So having configure errors out
> if Gettext is not installed is probably not be the best option.  It
> could be possible not to change nothing, considering that README-hacking
> is clear enough and people hacking on Texinfo can understand msgmerge:
> not found error message.  Another option option would be to add a bit more 
> text in README-hacking to say something like
> 
>   If Gettext is not installed, an error could appear when doing make 
>   and not before, as Gettext may not be needed when starting from a 
>   release.
> 
> What do you think?

Please feel free to add something to that effect.  I have run
"make update-po" and committed it; maybe that will help.  I admit I
don't know when msgmerge needs to run.  I know that texinfo.pot and
texinfo_document.pot are not tracked in git: maybe it is because
those files are missing.  I suspect it is being run from 
tp/maintain/regenerate_docstr.sh via tp/Makefile.am.