Re: [Fwd: Building gettext-0.11.5 bombs under Mingw]

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert writes:
> The latest GNU tar release is still using an old
> gettext version (which is bundled with GNU tar), so that release won't
> trigger the problem noted above; but the problem might occur when a
> new GNU tar release is made.

If the new GNU tar release comes with its own intl/ directory, there
will be no problem, because the intl/ directory doesn't contain
references to utime() or <utime.h>.

If, on the other hand, the new GNU tar release comes with
AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]), its behaviour will depend on whether a
gettext was installed earlier. If gettext had compilation problems and
could not be installed, the compilation of tar will proceed without
NLS support, and succeed.

> I suppose that we can tell people "if you run into build trouble,
> configure with --disable-nls and try again", but I'd rather not
> encourage bad habits like that.

There is no need for such an advice, because the AM_GNU_GETTEXT macro
figures out by itself whether NLS can be used or not.

So the maximum damage that we risk is that a user on DG/UX or Ultrix
or some similarly old OS is deprived from NLS, until he reports a bug
about it. I can live with that. And the win is a cleaner source code.

Bruno