[CCing bug-gnulib]
Benno Schulenberg wrote in
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gettext/2025-03/msg00000.html>:
>
> When running `./configure --help | less` after unpacking the 0.24 tarball,
> the first line says:
>
> 'configure' configures gettext dummy to adapt to many kinds of systems.
>
>
> Gettext-0.23 mentioned "gettext 0.23" instead.
This is a consequence of the use of Gnulib module 'package-version'.
There are apparently two places where the word 'dummy' is used instead
of the actual version number.
It will require Autoconf changes to fix this properly. Autoconf was
written at times when it was not common to change a package's version
five times a day.
In the meantime, let me change the word 'dummy', so that the resulting
'./configure --help' output sounds more reasonable.
2025-03-01 Bruno Haible <br...@clisp.org>
package-version: Improve wording in './configure --help'.
Reported by Benno Schulenberg <bensb...@telfort.nl> in
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gettext/2025-03/msg00000.html>.
* doc/package-version.texi: Recommend a dummy version number named
'package', not 'dummy'.
* m4/init-package-version.m4: Update comments accordingly.
* build-aux/git-version-gen: Likewise.
diff --git a/build-aux/git-version-gen b/build-aux/git-version-gen
index da6e131c03..250b77accb 100755
--- a/build-aux/git-version-gen
+++ b/build-aux/git-version-gen
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ scriptversion=2025-01-28.09; # UTC
# since configure.ac no longer includes a version string, Makefile rules
# should not depend on configure.ac for version updates).
#
-# AC_INIT([@var{package}], [dummy])
+# AC_INIT([@var{package}], [package])
# AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([@var{unique-file-in-source-dir}])
# AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([build-aux])
# VERSION_NUMBER=`cd $srcdir \
diff --git a/doc/package-version.texi b/doc/package-version.texi
index b8aa9ff96b..cef4be2d0a 100644
--- a/doc/package-version.texi
+++ b/doc/package-version.texi
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@
The recommended code pattern is
@example
-AC_INIT([@var{package}], [dummy])
+AC_INIT([@var{package}], [package])
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([@var{unique-file-in-source-dir}])
AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([build-aux])
VERSION_NUMBER=`cd $srcdir \
diff --git a/m4/init-package-version.m4 b/m4/init-package-version.m4
index a9acf8453f..a95b804c49 100644
--- a/m4/init-package-version.m4
+++ b/m4/init-package-version.m4
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
# init-package-version.m4
-# serial 6
+# serial 7
dnl Copyright (C) 1992-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
dnl This file is free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU
dnl General Public License. As a special exception to the GNU General
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
#
# With the macro defined in this file, the approach can be coded like this:
#
-# AC_INIT(PACKAGE, [dummy], [MORE OPTIONS])
+# AC_INIT(PACKAGE, [package], [MORE OPTIONS])
# AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR(WITNESS)
# . $srcdir/../version.sh
# gl_INIT_PACKAGE_VERSION($VERSION_NUMBER)
