gettextize does not create Makefiles correctly

[olliwolli]

Binary package hint: gettext

I use gettextize to setup my GNU project for translation.
After I run aclocal, autoconf, automake and configure,
the make command fails with the following error:

make[1]: Entering directory `/@BLACKED_OUT@/project/po'
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `/config.status', needed by `Makefile'. Stop.

This error seems to come some macros which are not replace e.g. the Makevars and others.
(in general the DISTFILES)

If I replace this line in the po/Makefile:

Makefile: Makefile.in.in Makevars $(top_builddir)/config.status @POMAKEFILEDEPS@

with:

Makefile: Makefile.in.in Makevars ../config.status POTFILES.in

the problem with config.status does not occur anymore. But there is another problem:

cd po
make update-po
make[1]: Entering directory `/@BLACKED_OUT@/project/po'
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `@UPDATEPOFILES@'. Stop.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[PeterPall (peterpall)]

Tried it with a karmic version from today morning. Don't know enough about the autotools to be able to actually confirm this is a bug, but I can at least confirm I get this error message in a project Intrepid still did compile without problems.

[PeterPall (peterpall)]

Ok... Found it. At least partially: The Makefile.in template automake creates uses the file config status from the directory $(top_builddir). Only for some reason the variable $(top_builddir) is no more set in my project... Will investigate further.

[PeterPall (peterpall)]

Found a solution, even if I don't know if it is the recommended one, since this way I ended up creating the variable manually:

Just include the following lines into your configure.ac file:
{{{
configure.ac:top_builddir=`pwd`
configure.ac:AC_SUBST(top_builddir)
}}}

[PeterPall (peterpall)]

Found another solution which looks like it is the recommended one:

Add not only po/Makefile to the list of files that have to be generated, but also add po/Makefile.in to this list in the configure.ac-file from the top level.

The respective line in my configure.ac file looks like the following:
{{{
AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile src/Makefile tex/Makefile po/Makefile.in po/Makefile])
}}}

[PeterPall (peterpall)]

Found another potential solution at http://gspy.sourceforge.net/gettext.html:

gettextize --force --copy --intl