automake warning

automake warning

[Robert Vollmert]

When I run `make` in the guix repository, I always get the following
block of warnings at the start:

configure.ac:23: warning: The 'AM_PROG_MKDIR_P' macro is deprecated, and its use is discouraged.
configure.ac:23: You should use the Autoconf-provided 'AC_PROG_MKDIR_P' macro instead,
configure.ac:23: and use '$(MKDIR_P)' instead of '$(mkdir_p)'in your Makefile.am files.
Makefile.am:613: warning: AM_GNU_GETTEXT used but 'po' not in SUBDIRS

I tried figuring out what’s wrong, but am a bit at a loss. Web search indicates this might
have to do with an old gettext version, but that info is from several years, and should have
been fixed for a while. Any ideas?

Robert

Re: automake warning

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

(Digging through old messages…)

Robert Vollmert <rob@vllmrt.net> skribis:

> When I run `make` in the guix repository, I always get the following
> block of warnings at the start:
>
> configure.ac:23: warning: The 'AM_PROG_MKDIR_P' macro is deprecated, and its use is discouraged.
> configure.ac:23: You should use the Autoconf-provided 'AC_PROG_MKDIR_P' macro instead,
> configure.ac:23: and use '$(MKDIR_P)' instead of '$(mkdir_p)'in your Makefile.am files.
> Makefile.am:613: warning: AM_GNU_GETTEXT used but 'po' not in SUBDIRS

This has “always been around” and there’s nothing we can do on our side.

However, one should definitely ping bug-gettext@gnu.org about this, it
seems silly to have these warnings for years.

Ludo’.

Re: automake warning

[Miguel]

Hello,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>:
> Hello,
> 
> (Digging through old messages…)
> 
> Robert Vollmert <rob@vllmrt.net> skribis:
> 
> > When I run `make` in the guix repository, I always get the following
> > block of warnings at the start:
> >
> > configure.ac:23: warning: The 'AM_PROG_MKDIR_P' macro is
> > deprecated, and its use is discouraged.
> > configure.ac:23: You should use the Autoconf-provided
> > 'AC_PROG_MKDIR_P' macro instead,
> > configure.ac:23: and use > > '$(MKDIR_P)' instead of '$(mkdir_p)'in
> > your Makefile.am files.
> > Makefile.am:613: warning: AM_GNU_GETTEXT used but 'po' not in SUBDIRS  
> 
> This has “always been around” and there’s nothing we can do on our
> side.

Actually this has been fixed in gettext some time ago.  The problem lies
on the following line:

configure.ac:24: AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.18.1])

This line is used by autopoint (called by autoreconf, called by
bootstrap script) to install the macros from that exact version.

The first warning can be removed simply bumping the version to 0.18.2,
which includes that fix.  The newer, the better, but that's the minimal
version change.

> However, one should definitely ping bug-gettext@gnu.org about this, it
> seems silly to have these warnings for years.

The warning left can be silly for Guix, as there are three different
translation domains in a single source code base, so the setup is
inherently more complex.  It is not a bad idea at all for a small/medium
size project to warn the missing po folder when the internationalization
is being set up, as gettext "enforces" the use of recursive make into
the it to get the translations targets; Guix does that not only
once, but twice, and another time with different tools and make rules
for the manual translation.

This point maybe worths a discussion in bug-gettext@gnu.org, at least
to give some way to disable it, but I had to clarify this
beforehand, as guix usage is not the common case and one warning
actually complies with our requested behaviour.

Happy hacking,
Miguel