Re: GNU gettext 0.10.39 updates po/ChangeLog

[Bruno Haible]

Roger Leigh writes:
> supposing my package has multiple catalogues, with several
> potfiles.  Currently, I would need to manually copy Makefile.in.in to any
> additional directories, and patch it appropriately to make the potfile of
> the correct name.

Yes you will need to do that. And when the different directories
contain translations for different sets of languages, you also set the
list of languages in a file called LINGUAS in the po directory. That
will be supported starting from gettext-0.11 and automake-1.5.

> You would need to associate the catalogue name with the
> directory name, or just keep them the same.

Good point. Thanks for mentioning it.

> autogen scripts set up all of the autotools: autoconf, automake, gettext,
> libtool and whatever other `embedded' scripts are used to build.  It's a
> perfectly valid use.  Why should I not automate gettextize?

I don't recommend it because once you made the migration from LINGUAS
in configure.in to po/LINGUAS, users with versions of automake < 1.5
or gettext < 0.11 will get build errors. How can you ensure that all
your users have the right versions of the tools?

> >Here is a workaround:
> >
> >  gettextize && mv -f po/ChangeLog~ po/ChangeLog
> 
> ...  gettextize should not update po/ChangeLog if I so choose.

I gave you a workaround.

> No, I can't.  This would involve using sed or some other script on the
> po/Makefile.in.in installed by gettextize.  How am I to cope with future
> releases of gettextize and po/Makefile.in.in, which might break my script.

Keep the patches you made in a diff and reapply them after upgrading.

> IMO gettextize is the place for such behaviour.

Please, no. gettextize is a migration tool. It is *not* a build tool.

> also have the option to not have a
> po/ChangeLog: you are imposing something on users such as myself that we
> have no use for and do not want.  It would be trivial to only distribute
> po/ChangeLog if it existed, and allow me to do without it.

Expect to see the (indeed trivial) Makefile change in gettext 0.11.

Bruno