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gettextize
ProgramThe gettextize
program is an interactive tool that helps the
maintainer of a package internationalized through GNU gettext
.
It is used for two purposes:
gettext
for the first time.gettext
support in a package from a previous to a newer version of GNU gettext
.This program performs the following tasks:
gettext
.gettext
versions to the form recommended for the current GNU gettext
version.gettextize
.It can be invoked as follows:
gettextize [ option… ] [ directory ]
and accepts the following options:
-f
’--force
’
Force replacement of files which already exist.
--po-dir=dir
’
Specify a directory containing PO files. Such a directory contains the
translations into various languages of a particular POT file. This
option can be specified multiple times, once for each translation domain.
If it is not specified, the directory named po/
is updated.
--no-changelog
’
Don’t update or create ChangeLog files. By default, gettextize
logs all changes (file additions, modifications and removals) in a
file called ‘ChangeLog
’ in each affected directory.
--symlink
’
Make symbolic links instead of copying the needed files. This can be
useful to save a few kilobytes of disk space, but it requires extra
effort to create self-contained tarballs, it may disturb some mechanism
the maintainer applies to the sources, and it is likely to introduce
bugs when a newer version of gettext
is installed on the system.
-n
’--dry-run
’
Print modifications but don’t perform them. All actions that
gettextize
would normally execute are inhibited and instead only
listed on standard output.
--help
’
Display this help and exit.
--version
’
Output version information and exit.
If directory
is given, this is the top level directory of a
package to prepare for using GNU gettext
. If not given, it
is assumed that the current directory is the top level directory of
such a package.
The program gettextize
provides the following files. However,
no existing file will be replaced unless the option --force
(-f
) is specified.
ABOUT-NLS
file is copied in the main directory of your package,
the one being at the top level. This file contains a reference to the
GNU gettext documentation. It also avoids an error from Automake in
packages that use the Automake option ‘gnu
’ or ‘gnits
’:
“error: required file ’./ABOUT-NLS’ not found”.A po/
directory is created for eventually holding
all translation files, but initially only containing the file
po/Makefile.in.in
from the GNU gettext
distribution
(beware the double ‘.in
’ in the file name) and a few auxiliary
files. If the po/
directory already exists, it will be preserved
along with the files it contains, and only Makefile.in.in
and
the auxiliary files will be overwritten.
If ‘--po-dir
’ has been specified, this holds for every directory
specified through ‘--po-dir
’, instead of po/
.
config.rpath
is copied into the directory containing
configuration support files. It is needed by the AM_GNU_GETTEXT
autoconf macro.automake
:
A set of autoconf
macro files is copied into the package’s
autoconf
macro repository, usually in a directory called m4/
.If your site support symbolic links, gettextize
will not
actually copy the files into your package, but establish symbolic
links instead. This avoids duplicating the disk space needed in
all packages. Merely using the ‘-h
’ option while creating the
tar
archive of your distribution will resolve each link by an
actual copy in the distribution archive. So, to insist, you really
should use ‘-h
’ option with tar
within your dist
goal of your main Makefile.in
.
Furthermore, gettextize
will update all Makefile.am
files
in each affected directory, as well as the top level configure.ac
or configure.in
file.
It is interesting to understand that most new files for supporting
GNU gettext
facilities in one package go in po/
and
m4/
subdirectories. Still, these directories will mostly
contain package dependent files.
The gettextize
program makes backup files for all files it
replaces or changes, and also write ChangeLog entries about these
changes. This way, the careful maintainer can check after running
gettextize
whether its changes are acceptable to him, and
possibly adjust them. An exception to this rule is the intl/
directory, which is removed as a whole if it still existed.
It is important to understand that gettextize
can not do the
entire job of adapting a package for using GNU gettext
. The
amount of remaining work depends on whether the package uses GNU
automake
or not. But in any case, the maintainer should still
read the section Adjusting Files after invoking gettextize
.
In particular, if after using ‘gettexize
’, you get an error
‘AC_COMPILE_IFELSE was called before AC_GNU_SOURCE
’ or
‘AC_RUN_IFELSE was called before AC_GNU_SOURCE
’, you can fix it
by modifying configure.ac
, as described in configure.ac.
It is also important to understand that gettextize
is not part
of the GNU build system, in the sense that it should not be invoked
automatically, and not be invoked by someone who doesn’t assume the
responsibilities of a package maintainer. For the latter purpose, a
separate tool is provided, see autopoint Invocation.
Next: Adjusting Files, Previous: Prerequisites, Up: Maintainers [Contents][Index]