[Sent to 386487 instead of 386263, this is a gettext issue and not gnome-lokkit]
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 11:57:42AM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Sep 2006, Steve Langasek wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at 11:33:17AM +0000, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> > > # Rebootstrap the package
> > > aclocal -I macros
> > > aclocal: macro `AM_PROG_MKDIR_P' required but not defined
> > > aclocal: macro `AM_PROG_MKDIR_P' required but not defined
> >
> > So in addition to the gettext pseudobug (#385235), we seem to have an
> > incompatibility between the latest gettext and automake 1.4/1.7. These
> > versions are still in active use, which makes it impractical to include a
> > gettext in etch that doesn't support them.
>
> Simple question: Is this the kind of bug that may be forwarded upstream
> and fixed?
No, these bugs are not caused by gettext itself, but by bad practices.
Let's look at all different cases:
1. aclocal is not called during package build:
aclocal.m4 and po/Makefile.in.in come from upstream and are
compatible.
2. aclocal is called during package build:
2.a. gettext.m4 is found in a local copy, usually under m4/
There is no problem, m4/gettext.m4 and po/Makefile.in.in come
from upstream and are compatible
2.b. gettext.m4 is found in /usr/share/aclocal/
Here gettext.m4 may be incompatible with po/Makefile.in.in
The only problem is with 2.b. In this case, developers should call
autopoint before aclocal. Bruno Haible provided autopoint for this
exact purpose. It can regenerate m4/gettext.m4 and
po/Makefile.in.in for any previous version of gettext, this tool
is really great. Since autopoint 0.11.3, one can for instance add
AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.12.1])
just after AM_GNU_GETTEXT in configure.ac to request files from
gettext 0.12.1. This is useful with packages which depend on
automake 1.4, one can use more recent versions; ideally we should
try to reproduce the exact same version as upstream to avoid
problems.
Caveats:
* Packages have to Build-Depends: cvs because cvs is needed by
autopoint.
* As explained in gettext documentation, one may have to add
AC_GNU_SOURCE into configure.ac
> Alternatively, if it helps, I could greate a gettext-0.14 package on
> which older packages could build-depend (the same way they already
> build-depend on an old automake).
Santiago, I requested some help to rebuild packages on gettext to
see how many packages are corrupted:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2006/09/msg00018.html
A more detailed analysis is available at
http://lists.debian.org/debian-qa/2006/09/msg00029.html
In short, 2 packages only have to be fixed now. IMO there is no need
to add a gettext-0.14 package, especially thanks to autopoint.
About the issue with plural forms, I checked almost all PO files in
Debian. Most problems come from ja.po files, but they are not
critical because packages ship MO files and do not compile PO files,
so this is an upstream issue.
There is only one package to fix in Debian, namely meld.
I discussed about that with Kenshi Muto during our i18n meeting in
Extremadura, and he contacted those Japanese translators, so these
translations will be fixed upstream soon.
Denis
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