Re: [PATCH] AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) disables NLS

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Sergey,

> Thus GNU awk and any programs using an approach similar to that of gawk,
> are effectively distributed witout NLS support.

Thanks for noticing the problem and reporting it. Sorry for the delay on
my side.

> dnl initialize GNU gettext
> AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
> AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.14.4])
>
> Its main() contains:
>
> ##if HAVE_LC_MESSAGES && defined(LC_MESSAGES)
>         setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "");
> ##endif
>
> Now, checking for LC_MESSAGES occurs in gettext-runtime/m4/gettext.m4,
> in defun AM_INTL_SUBDIR. This function is called from AM_GNU_GETTEXT
> only if variable gt_included_intl equals to `yes', which in turn
> occurs only if the first argument to AM_GNU_GETTEXT is not `external'.

About this issue, whether LC_MESSAGES is defined or not, the GNU gettext
manual says:

  On all POSIX conformant systems the locale categories `LC_CTYPE',
  `LC_MESSAGES', `LC_COLLATE', `LC_MONETARY', `LC_NUMERIC', and `LC_TIME'
  are available.  On some systems which are only ISO C compliant,
  `LC_MESSAGES' is missing, but a substitute for it is defined in GNU
  gettext's `<libintl.h>'.

This implies that the recommended code (for GNU awk and other packages)
is

  #include <locale.h>
  #include "gettext.h" /* conditionally includes <libintl.h> */

  ...

  #ifdef LC_MESSAGES
    setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "");
  #endif

The #ifdef is only needed for portability to very ancient hosts and only
for when --disable-nls is used (because then, gettext.h does not include
<libintl.h>).

> Proposed is a patch to gettext-runtime/m4/gettext.m4 that moves checking
> for LC_MESSAGES to AM_GNU_GETTEXT (see attachment).

This patch will not be applied, because HAVE_LC_MESSAGES is not and never
was documented, and it doesn't help the developer who follows the GNU
gettext documentation.

Thanks anyway. Do you know other programs which use HAVE_LC_MESSAGES and
better shouldn't?

                             Bruno