Re: [bug-gettext] a .gmo file is not regenerated when its .po file changed

[Daiki Ueno]

Benno Schulenberg <address@hidden> writes:

> In a source tree of nano, after I've edited a PO file, running a simple
> 'make' in the main directory will regenerate the corresponding GMO file.
> But in the source trees of for example grep or texinfo this is not the
> case; a 'make' will not update the GMO file, and even a 'make install'
> will just install the existing .gmo file (which no longer matches with
> the .po file).  I think this is wrong.

That is an intentional behavior change made around gettext-0.12:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gettext.git/commit/?id=37b1870c1979c42adbca49825ee14cbe9bd33ca1

Prior to that, "make all" did only update .gmo files from the existing
.po files, while it now also updates .po files as needed (i.e., when the
POT file has changed).

If we added .gmo files as a prerequisite of "make all", it could trigger
.po files update, which is not desirable, especially when .po files are
version controlled.

> Is there any way that modern gettext can in its Makefile.in.in make
> each GMO file depend on its corresponding PO file?

I'm afraid it is probably not an option to bring back the original
behavior, but you can still do:

  cd po && make update-gmo

Regards,
-- 
Daiki Ueno