Re: gettext: "make check" fails on NetBSD/sparc-1.5

[Paul Eggert]

> From: "Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 21:51:24 +0200

> > It means NetBSD's fprintf function is not POSIX compliant. In order to
> > be POSIX compliant, it should support the syntax "%5$s" that prints
> > the fifth argument as a string.
> 
> Bruno, when did that requirement enter Posix?

It's not required by POSIX.  It is part of the XSI extension option.
This means it is required to work on all systems supporting the X/Open
System Interfaces Extension, but it is not required for POSIX compliance.

> Is that an official Posix standard or just a draft?

The extension is part of POSIX 1003.1-2001, which is an official IEEE
standard as of December.  It's not an official ISO standard yet but I
expect that to happen soon.

You can read the POSIX spec online at:
http://www.UNIX-systems.org/version3/online.html

Registration is required, the terms are here:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/terms.htm


> If it's a draft, or a standard approved only recently, perhaps
> support for it should not be such an absolute requirement?

If I understand things correctly, it's not an absolute requirement.
Translations that contain strings like "%5$s" won't work on hosts that
don't support this POSIX extension.  On such hosts, you must use the C
locale, or some other locale that doesn't use that extension.  I don't
think this is a fatal objection to using those strings in
translations.  If you want translations, you need a library that has
proper i18n.

However, it does appear to me that the gettext documentation should
discuss this issue a bit more clearly.  I'll try to write up a proposed
patch.