Re: gettext version-numbering problems in Bison (+ Bison patch)

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:
>
>   autoreconf: running: autopoint --force
>   cvs [checkout aborted]: no such tag gettext-0_14_1
>
>  * Improve the quality of the autopoint diagnostic quoted above.

Indeed, the diagnostic should better have been

    autopoint: The AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declaration in your configure.ac
    file requires the infrastructure from gettext-0.14.1 but this version
    is older. Please upgrade to gettext-0.14.1 or newer.

I'll improve the diagnostic.

> As it happens, CVS Bison builds just fine with older versions of
> gettext (at least 0.14; I haven't checked others).

Then you can write AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION(0.14) instead of 0.14.1.

> This isn't the first time this has happened, and I'm afraid that this
> dependency on exact gettext version is getting in our way.  I realize
> why the feature is there: to encourage all maintainers to use the same
> gettext version.

It's actually a dependency on a _minimum_ gettext version. If you write
AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION(0.11.5) then the developers can have any version
>= 0.11.5 installed; the bison package will work with the 0.11.5 infra-
structure in all developers' builds.

The developer who writes AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION(0.14.1) is therefore the
one who pushes all other developers.

Probably I should explain these things better in the manual.

>  * Provide an easy way to suppress the gettext version-number check.

You can write AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION(0.11.5) . Then the other developers
can use gettext 0.11.5, 0.13.1, or whatever.

>  * Currently autopoint greps configure.ac for lines; I guess it should
>    be tracing instead.  I can't put the AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION line in
>    an M4 macro in m4/something.m4, for example.  (I tried this as my
>    first workaround attempt.)

Yes, I agree this is a nice wish.