Re: GNU.Gettext.dll in /usr/lib?

[Bruno Haible]

Santiago Vila wrote:
> While trying to add C# support to the Debian gettext package,
> I reached the point where I have prototype packages compiled for 10
> different architectures (the normal 11 but m68k, which does not have
> pnet yet).
>
> The gettext manual says .dll and .exe files are architecture-independent,
> which confirms what I suspected by looking at the lengths of these files
> in the different architectures (they do not change).

The size is not a good indicator here, since all .exes and .dlls have a size
that is a multiple of 256 bytes. But indeed when I use a GNU.Gettext.dll
compiled on a big-endian system on a little-endian one, it works without
problems. So yes it looks like C# .dll and .exe files are platform
independent,

I'll change gettext to install these things under share/ rather than lib/.
Thanks for having noticed it.

> So: Is there something that would break horribly if GNU.Gettext.dll
> were put somewhere in /usr/share, like libintl.jar, or there is a
> hardcoded path somewhere which forces it to be in /usr/lib?

The "/lib" is hardcoded in gettext-tools/examples/configure.ac.

> While we are at it: The strip utility seems to understand the format
> of .exe and .dll files, since it does not complain when trying
> to strip them. It is really safe to strip them?

With GNU binutils, I believe stripping a file of unknown format has no ill
effects. Nevertheless it is of course safer to just not do this kind of thing.

Bruno