Re: gettext doesn't create .gmo files

[Sebastian Dransfeld]

Bruno Haible wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Sebastian Dransfeld wrote:
> > Have a project which uses gettext, and I have noticed a weird behavior 
> > from the Makefile in po/. It does not create .gmo files if they don't 
> > exist. It seems that the current Makefile only creates .gmo files if the 
> >   .pot file is updated, or during 'make dist'. Is this intentional?
>
> Yes, this is intentional. This minimizes the time that maintainers have
> to wait on msgmerge to complete. Most maintainers don't care much about
> internationalization and would not like it to get in their way.

OK, I understand that there is no point in rebuilding them. But if they 
don't exist at all, shouldn't they be built?

> > The problem is that I install from cvs. So sometimes people add new 
> > languages. This adds a .po file and changes LINGUAS. These two events do 
> > not trigger a build of the .gmo file which belongs
>
> Yes, but you can force it by doing "make update-po", as documented.

Crap, maybe I should RTFM then :)

> > and is quit annoying.
>
> What are the negative effects? Does it show an error message,
> interrupting "make"? Or is it just "annoying"?

Only that 'make install' complains about missing .gmo files, and that I 
didn't know any good solution to fix it.

Sebastian