Re: Problem with gettext on Solaris

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Brian Cameron wrote:
> The AM_GNU_GETTEXT macro fails on Solaris even though Solaris has been made
> compatible with GNU gettext.  AM_GNU_GETTEXT always wants to build the
> gettext sources included with various modules.  So at Sun, we have been
> working around this by using AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT which has a special test
> for Solaris making things work.  It would probably be better if this could
> also be fixed in AM_GNU_GETTEXT.

Thanks for reporting this. Solaris' libc functions indeed can use GNU .mo
files as they were in 2000/2001, i.e. major revision 0. In 2002, the
GNU .mo file format has been augmented (in major revision 1) to support
<inttypes.h> placeholder strings. This file format is not supported by
Solaris, as far as I know. For optimal results, the AM_GNU_GETTEXT
macro therefore continues to use the GNU code, also on Solaris.

> AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT has the following special test-case to recognize
> that allows it to work:
>
>            AC_TRY_LINK(, [extern int _nl_msg_cat_cntr;
>                           return _nl_msg_cat_cntr],
>              [CATOBJEXT=.gmo
>               DATADIRNAME=share],
>              [case $host in
>              *-*-solaris*)
>              dnl On Solaris, if bind_textdomain_codeset is in libc,
>              dnl GNU format message catalog is always supported,
>              dnl since both are added to the libc all together.
>              dnl Hence, we'd like to go with DATADIRNAME=share and
>              dnl and CATOBJEXT=.gmo in this case.
>              AC_CHECK_FUNC(bind_textdomain_codeset,
>                [CATOBJEXT=.gmo
>                 DATADIRNAME=share],
>                [CATOBJEXT=.mo
>                 DATADIRNAME=lib])

This macro code is woefully out of date. GNU gettext does not support
installation of .mo files under $PREFIX/lib since 0.10.36.

> Would it be possible to get similar logic included in the AM_GNU_GETTEXT
> macro?

Only if Solaris implements the <inttypes.h> placeholder strings, and
defines __GNU_GETTEXT_SUPPORTED_REVISION(major) in <libintl.h> in a way
that signals that major revision 1 is also supported.

Bruno