Re: a saner bootstrap script

[Bruno Haible]

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > They're in different packages on my system:
> > 
> > $ rpm -qf $(which autopoint)
> > gettext-devel-0.18.1.1-7.fc15.x86_64
> > $ rpm -qf $(which gettext)
> > gettext-0.18.1.1-7.fc15.x86_64

For 'bootstrap's purposes, the latter is irrelevant; only the presence
and version of 'autopoint' matters.

For configure's purpose, only the presence and version of 'xgettext' and
'msgfmt' matter. This is already handled in AM_GNU_GETTEXT.

Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> There is
> an underlying assumption here that if AM_GNU_GETTEXT was seen in configure.ac,
> then
> gettext was checked for already, and so autopoint should be available too.
> Perhaps
> the right fix, then, is to note when configure.ac indicates that autopoint is
> necessary to bootstrap, and causes bootstrap to exit with a diagnostic if not?

Absolutely, yes. One of the purposes of 'bootstrap' is to recover all files
that were omitted from version control. Regarding gettext's infrastructure,
the fact that such files were omitted are indicated by the presence of
an invocation of AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION, see
  <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Files-under-CVS.html>

If such an invocation is present, and 'autopoint' is not present in $PATH
or found through the AUTOPOINT environment variable, you should bail out.
It makes no sense to continue if the script cannot produce the necessary
files.

> Another approach would be to look for autopoint automatically when
> AM_GNU_GETTEXT is
> seen

Not AM_GNU_GETTEXT but AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION.

And the handling of 'autopoint' should, of course, follow what we document
in
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/gettextize-and-autopoint.html>.

That documentation also talks about 'gettextize'. But 'bootstrap' MUST
NOT, NEVER, invoke 'gettextize'. See
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/gettextize-Invocation.html>.

Bruno
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