Re: AM_GNU_GETTEXT(use-libtool) and Automake's "make distcheck"

[Bruno Haible]

On Thursday 05 December 2002 05:10, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> I'm having trouble getting this combination to work on Debian
> woody(*), which has libintl natively.  Automake creates a target "make
> distcheck" that contains:
> 
>         && ../configure --srcdir=.. --prefix="$$dc_install_base" \
>           --with-included-gettext \
>           $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) \
> 
> and I think it is the --with-included-gettext that is causing trouble.

This is fixed in automake-1.7.2. Thanks to Alexandre Duret-Lutz!

> As can be seen below, the intl/ directory is not installing libintl in
> $prefix/lib directory. ... I think this is a
> gettext/libintl bug: intl/Makefile should force an installation of
> libintl.{,l}a when --with-included-gettext is specified.

This is normal. Only the gettext package installs libintl. Some other
packages compile their intl directory with "#define malloc rpl_malloc"
or similar, and the resulting libintl.a is therefore useful only for
this single package.

> Then later on, relinking the application for
> "make install" fails because -lintl is not found.

If you get a link error for -lintl when --with-included-gettext is
used, you should add -Lintl (or -L../intl or -L../../intl - depending
where is your Makefile) to the LIBS or LDFLAGS variable.

> Why isn't AM_GNU_GETTEXT(use-libtool) the default when libtool is
> used, btw?

Because libtool can also use .a libraries without problems. Making
AM_GNU_GETTEXT(use-libtool) the default would mean that some package
maintainers would have to change their Makefiles to use ../intl/libintl.la
instead of ../intl/libintl.a - a gratuitous change without any gain in
functionality.

Bruno