Re: automake/335: Multi-language man pages

[Schleicher Ralph (LLI)]

Alexandre Duret-Lutz <address@hidden> writes:

> Suggestions so far are to put this information in the source
> filename.  For instance teaching Automake to install
> `pt_BR-foo.1' or `foo.1.pt_BR' as `pt_BR/man1/foo.1',
> with the rewriting issues Josef pointed out.

`foo.1.pt_BR' breaks Emacs' major mode mechanism forcing people to
add `-*- nroff -*-' at the beginning of each man page source file.
That should be avoided.

`pt_BR-foo.1' is also a bad idea.  Consider your package builds two
programs, `foo' and `de-foo'.  Is `de-foo.1' the German manual page
for `foo' or the standard manual page for `de-foo'?

Solution to the problem: encode the language in the MANS primary
using "language code prefixes", for example,

    # Standard man pages.
    man_MANS = foo.1 de-foo.1

    # German man pages, install as languages `de', `de_DE',
    # `de_AT', and `de_CH'.
    de_man_MANS = de/foo.1 de/de-foo.1
    de_DE_man_MANS = de/foo.1 de/de-foo.1
    de_AT_man_MANS = de/foo.1 de/de-foo.1
    de_CH_man_MANS = de/foo.1 de/de-foo.1
    # Automake should also support:
    #de_man1_MANS = foo.de de-foo.de

The installation file name scheme for foreign language manual pages
has to be examined by Autoconf.  Possible schemes I can think of are

    $(mandir)/%L/man1/foo.1
    $(mandir)/man1/%L/foo.1
    $(mandir)/man1/foo.1.%L

where `%L' is the language code (borrowed from HP-UX).  The first
scheme `%L/man1/foo.1' should be the default since it allows run time
configuration via the MANPATH environment variable.

Just my 2 cents,

-- 
Ralph