AM_PO_SUBDIRS does not tell autoreconf that autopoint is needed

[philip . chimento]

I'm reporting a bug that was already noticed on the Automake mailing list a
few years ago [1]. See that message for detailed output.

According to the gettext manual [2], AM_PO_SUBDIRS should do all the
necessary work that AM_GNU_GETTEXT would do, minus checking for the ability
to use gettext from C. This makes it ideal for programs using gettext in
interpreted languages. The presence of AM_PO_SUBDIRS should cause
autoreconf to call autopoint, but it does not.

You can reproduce this by creating a project with the following configure.ac
and Makefile.am:

configure.ac:
AC_INIT([Test], [0])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])
AM_PO_SUBDIRS
AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile po/Makefile.in])
AC_OUTPUT

Makefile.am:
SUBDIRS = po

Regards,
Philip Chimento

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2009-02/msg00021.html
[2]
https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/AM_005fPO_005fSUBDIRS.html