Tag Archives: autotools

autotools, gnome

Use upstream gettext instead the glib one

4 Comments

Some people asked me about this, so here a fast tutorial:
Replace this in your configure.ac:

AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT

with this:

AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.17])

You can see an example in this commit: [1]

Now the theory: gettext has two different utilities: autopoint and gettextize. Here the different purposes of these programs:

  • autopoint [2] Copies the gettext infrastructure that has been omitted from version control.
  • gettextize [3] The `gettextize’ program is an interactive tool that helps the maintainer of a package internationalized through GNU `gettext’. … As a migration tool, for upgrading the GNU `gettext’ support in a package from a previous to a newer version of GNU `gettext’.

So, you should only use autopoint in your autogen.sh file. Only the maintainer should call the gettextize program.
Fortunately, autopoint is automatically called in both gnome-autogen.sh and autoreconf, so no need to change your autogen.sh file.

Note that autopoint needs the AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION() macro to know the version of gettext files you want tou use, because it copies the infrastructure files belonging to this version into the package. ie, AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.17]) means exactly 0.17, not 0.17 and above.

Why we use glib-gettextize then? Well, as far as I know It’s mainly for historical reasons: autopoint was not added until version 0.11 of gettext. However, GNOME did not require gettext version 0.11 those days, so it would had been premature to rely on that script. That is not a problem anymore.

There is also a bug to deprecate the Glib gettext macros: [4]

[1] http://git.gnome.org/browse/giggle/diff/configure.ac?id=7eb32e8d39c382b3bd8a670198b77cbc844c60a7
[2] http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#autopoint-Invocation
[3] http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#index-gettextize-1117
[4] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=624186


Flattr this

gnome

Modernize your autotools build system

11 Comments

Update: I converted this post in a new GnomeGoal, see here

Update 2: Added some more tips

Autotools is the most common system to build programs in GTK+/GNOME projects.

Remove deprecated macros for our configure.ac file and use the new syntax will do our build system more legible and portable

The Autotools comes with a program to make the work for us, simply run

autoupdate

in you source tree and you have a new updated configure.ac. (Checks the result for possibles errors)

Some more tips:

  • Respect the standard configure.ac layout
  • Try to avoid the use of AM_MAINTAINER_MODE. AM_MAINTAINER_MODE (called like that) disables dependency-checking for autotools-generated stuff. AM_MAINTAINER_MODE([enabled]) retains the default behavior, but lets users pass a configure option to disable the dependency checking. So, if you really need this macro, use AM_MAINTAINER_MODE([enabled]). See the automake manual for a extended explanation
  • Use all the parameters of AC_INIT() (for the fifth parameter you need autoconf >= 2.64):
AC_INIT([Glom],[1.13.2],[http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Glom],[glom],[http://www.glom.org/])
  • Use updated versions of the programs (all of these versions (and newer) are present in Debian stable):
    • automake >= 1.11.1 (AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11.1])) (or 1.10.3, Automake < 1.10.3 and 1.11 are known to be suffering from critical security issues)
    • autoconf >= 2.64 (AC_PREREQ(2.64))
    • libtool >= 2.2.6 (LT_PREREQ([2.2.6]))
    • intltool >= 0.40.0 (IT_PROG_INTLTOOL([0.40.0]))
  • Take a look to all AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE() posible parameters. For example, to use 1.11.1 automake version and generate bzip2 distribution tarballs in addition to the gzip’ed:
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11.1 dist-bzip2])
  • Use LT_INIT() syntax for libtool (needs libtool >= 2.2.0). More info about LT_INIT(). For example, change this:
AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN
AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL
AC_DISABLE_STATIC
AM_PROG_LIBTOOL

For this:

LT_PREREQ([2.2.6])
LT_INIT([dlopen win32-dll disable-static])
  • Don’t use GNOME_COMMON_INIT, as it does not work with autoreconf. Simply add this to your Makefile.am. (You have to define the macros dir in your configure.ac, in this case: AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4]))
ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4 ${ACLOCAL_FLAGS}
  • Use gnome-common macros for compile warnings macros instead custom ones. Also use GNOME_MAINTAINER_MODE_DEFINES to get warnings when using deprecated symbols:
GNOME_COMPILE_WARNINGS([maximum])
GNOME_CXX_WARNINGS([yes])
GNOME_MAINTAINER_MODE_DEFINES

Other tips

Feel free to suggest more tips in the comments!

Some documentation:


Flattr this