[CCing bug-gettext] Hi Gavin,
Gavin Smith wrote in <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2024-12/msg00031.html>: > ... I found that the file was supposed to be updated by > "make texinfo_tp-gnulib.pot-update". This ran xgettext which is one > of the gettext programs to handle message files: > > /usr/local/bin/xgettext --default-domain=texinfo_tp-gnulib > --directory=../.. \ > --add-comments=TRANSLATORS: \ > --files-from=./POTFILES.in \ > --copyright-holder='Free Software Foundation, Inc.' \ > --msgid-bugs-address="$msgid_bugs_address" \ > --keyword=_ --flag=_:1:pass-c-format --keyword=N_ > --flag=N_:1:pass-c-format --keyword='proper_name:1,"This is a proper name. > See the gettext manual, section Names."' --keyword='proper_name_lite:1,"This > is a proper name. See the gettext manual, section Names."' > --keyword='proper_name_utf8:1,"This is a proper name. See the gettext manual, > section Names."' --flag=error:3:c-format --flag=error_at_line:5:c-format > --flag=asprintf:2:c-format --flag=vasprintf:2:c-format > > > However, I found that this was not producing any output file (supposed to > be "texinfo_tp-gnulib.po"). I found that the reason for this was that there > were not actually any translatable strings discovered in the files listed > in POTFILES.in. There had been translatable strings in the past, before > Gnulib module removals. Yes, it is a good idea to test whether xgettext has produced the expected $(DOMAIN).po file. > This is likely to happen for other project too if they do not use > many Gnulib modules or remove modules. > > The effect of this means that the package will be distributed with the > Gnulib translation catalogs with extra translations in them that the > program does not use. In this case, the package should ship no *.po files in this directory at all — since there is nothing to translate. > I found that xgettext needs the --force-po option to output an empty > file (which then becomes a .pot file with Makefile rules). > > Hence, I suggest the following change to use this option for Gnulib's > runs of xgettext: That's not an appropriate fix, since it means that the translators will be notified to translate a file with no contents; this is useless noise for them. The only reasonable use of the xgettext --force-po option is when the POT file is only partial, i.e. is then merged with a POT file produced by some other tools (similar to xgettext) or by xgettext invocations with different parameters. Bruno
