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

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert writes about fprintf support of "%m$s":

> 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.

GNU gettext relies heavily on three system interfaces:

  - nl_langinfo(CODESET),

  - iconv(),

  - fprintf support of "%m$s".

All of these are marked "X/Open System Interfaces Extension" in the
newest POSIX standard.

For a system which targets the desktop market all three facilities are
essential for internationalization. For certain applications, and if
the system administrator is guaranteed to speak English, a
non-internationalized Unix system makes perfect sense. This is why
POSIX made these facilities optional.

Now where does NetBSD stand? It supports nl_langinfo(CODESET) now, and
also iconv (via pkgsrc/converters/libiconv). So apparently they do
care about i18n, and thus it would make sense for them to implement
the third facility as well.

Bruno