Re: ax_prefix_config_h.m4 causes files to be left after "make distclean"

[Ralf Wildenhues]

[ adding bug-gettext ]

* David Bruce wrote on Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 12:40:58PM CET:
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 9:31 PM, David Bruce wrote:
> > We have reorganized our package (tuxmath) into a smaller package for
> > the game itself, plus a separate library package (t4k_common).  Both
> > packages use autotools, including autoheader.  As part of t4k_common,
> > we provide a couple of replacement functions (alphasort() and
> > scandir()) for platforms lacking these functions.  Thus, our
> > t4k_common.h header needs to have an autoheader include so it can
> > conditionally include the prototypes for these functions.
> >
> > Since just putting #include "config.h" at the top of our library
> > header would cause a name collision with tuxmath's config.h, I have
> > used the ax_prefix_config_h.m4 macro to rename t4k_common's config.h
> > to "t4k_common-config.h", and adapted all the *.c files accordingly.
> 
> I've discovered a more serious issue with my use of
> ax_prefix_config_h.m4 - it appears to be interfering with gettext()
> calls from within the library functions.  Looking at the gettext
> manual for using gettext within a library, it says "If it uses the
> translation domain and POT file of the main program, then the previous
> sections apply without changes.", which I believe is the case here -
> the library source files don't have their own translatable strings,
> but they do have gettext() calls to translate strings that are covered
> by tuxmath's *.po files.
> 
> I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to get this fixed.  As a test, I've
> tried hard-coding the gettext setup functions within the library to
> use the same values as tuxmath (see below), but I still don't get
> output of translated strings.
> 
> {
>     const char *s1, *s2, *s3, *s4;
>     s1 = setlocale(LC_ALL, NULL);
>     s2 = bindtextdomain("tuxmath", "/usr/local/share/locale");
>     s3 = bind_textdomain_codeset("tuxmath", "UTF-8");
>     s4 = textdomain("tuxmath");
>     printf("In InitT4KCommon():\n");
>     printf("setlocale(LC_ALL, \"\") returned: %s\n", s1);
>     printf("bindtextdomain(\"tuxmath\", \"/usr/local/share/locale\")
> returned: %s\n", s2);
>     printf("bind_textdomain_codeset(\"tuxmath\", \"UTF-8\") returned:
> %s\n", s3);
>     printf("textdomain(\"tuxmath\") returned: %s\n", s4);
>     printf("gettext(\"Help\"): %s\n\n", gettext("Help"));
>     printf("_(\"Help\"): %s\n\n", _("Help"));
>   }
> 
> I suspect that something about the renaming done by
> ax_prefix_config_h.m4 is preventing gettext from locating the message
> catelogs properly.  Also, I realize this is getting more into gettext
> than autoconf territory, but it seems there is a lot of overlap in
> expertise within the autotools family.  Should I take this to the
> bug-gnu list that handles gettext issues?

Let's ask on the (fairly new) bug-gettext list.  Do you have a small
reproducer setup?  I guess that could help to pinpoint the issue
quickly.

Thanks,
Ralf