[bug-gettext] Bug#892733: gettext: msgfmt doesn't work with Java 9 (fwd)

[Santiago Vila]

Dear Gettext maintainers:

I've received the following report from the Debian BTS.

This is now serious for us because it makes a lot of packages to fail
to build from source.

[ Question for Emmanuel: Whenever a new GCC breaks a lot of packages,
  individual packages are still allowed to build-depend: old-gcc
  as a last resort. Would this be a possibility here? ]

Thanks.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Emmanuel Bourg <address@hidden>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <address@hidden>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 12:04:37 +0100
Subject: gettext: msgfmt doesn't work with Java 9

Package: gettext
Version: 0.19.8.1-4
Severity: normal
User: address@hidden
Usertags: default-java9

Hi,

msgfmt doesn't work with Java 9, when invoked with the --java2 parameter
it fails to detect the JDK and returns this error message:

  msgfmt: Java compiler not found, try installing gcj or set $JAVAC
  msgfmt: compilation of Java class failed, please try --verbose or set $JAVAC

This issue breaks the build of at least two packages (plm and salliere).

It's possible to reproduce this issue by installing default-jdk/0.59+exp2
from experimental.

Emmanuel Bourg