Re: I am missing something, but don't know what

[Bruno Haible]

Dear Roberto Bagnara,

> So, I have used gettextize after having read its
> documentation.  The `m4' directory has been populated,
> the `po' directory has been created with Makefile.in.in
> (with the double `.in').  In the same directory I have
> created Makevars from Makevars.template, which I have
> then removed.  Since my library uses autoconf, I have
> added `po/Makefile.in' to AC_CONFIG_FILES, and also added
> the following lines
>
> # Gettext.
> # Look for an external libintl.
> AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
> # Declare the version number of the Gettext infrastructure we are using.
> AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION
>
> The last thing I did was to add `po' to SUBDIRS in the
> top-level Makefile.am (we also use automake).

That should be all that's is needed. (OK, the AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION should
be invoked with an argument, like 0.14.1, but this cannot be a problem
at this point.)

> Of course something is missing, isn't it?
> As a result of configure we end up with
> `Makefile.in' in the builddir/po directory,
> but who is supposed to create `Makefile' in
> that directory?

The po/Makefile is created by config.status just after creating
po/Makefile.in. It's a special code inside the AM_PO_SUBDIRS
macros which implements this.

If you end up with a po/Makefile.in but no po/Makefile, the likely
reason is that your 'configure' script is using a wrong version of the
AM_GNU_GETTEXT or AM_PO_SUBDIRS macro. I'd make sure that:
  - The package's m4/ directory contains the gettext.m4 and po.m4
    files that come from the right gettext version,
  - You have generated aclocal.m4 with the right -I argument pointing
    into this directory, (Attention: If you're using automake, take a look at
    the ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS variable.)
  - You have generated 'configure' using this aclocal.m4.

A sample program with all the automake/autoconf machinery is found in the
examples/hello-c/ directory that GNU gettext installs.

Bruno