build: make translate not working correctly on macOS #16891

issue fanquake opened this issue on September 17, 2019

fanquake commented at 4:12 AM on September 17, 2019: member

While reviewing #16882 I noticed that make translate doesn't seem to be working completely correctly on macOS. It doesn't generate the changes to src/qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp. xgettext is available and picked up by ./configure.

I tested on a Debian system instead, and everything work fine there (reproduces the changes in #16882), so I assume it's some macOS quirk.
fanquake added the label Build system on Sep 17, 2019
fanquake added the label good first issue on Sep 17, 2019
D4nte commented at 11:16 AM on October 6, 2019: none
My findings so far: gettext is not invoked when doing make translate on Mac os. This is because this task is not being triggered.

On Ubuntu:
```
$ make translate
  GEN      qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp
  GEN      translate
[...]
```
On Mac:
```
$ make translate
  GEN      translate
```
D4nte commented at 11:49 AM on October 6, 2019: none
I was able to reproduce on ubuntu too:

Running make -d:
```
   Finished prerequisites of target file `qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp'.
   Prerequisite `addrdb.cpp' is older than target `qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp'.
...
   Prerequisite `wallet/wallet.cpp' is older than target `qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp'.
...
  No need to remake target `qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp'.
```
wallet/wallet.cpp is correctly checked.

I was able to reproduce because I ran the command a first time, then reverted the changes with git checkout and reverted again.

At this stage, I believe the issue may be related to the order on which the files are written when cloning or checking out the repository locally. I will need to spend more time looking at the filesystem stats for the files and understand how make decides what file is older than a target (mtime?) and whether this information is suppose to be preserved in git.

In any case, as qt/bitcoinstrings.cpp is a generated file AND being checked in, I believe the best practice is to include it in .PHONY.
D4nte commented at 8:17 PM on October 6, 2019: none

Git is not supposed to preserve mtime https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ContentLimitations
MarcoFalke commented at 8:41 PM on October 6, 2019: member

Are the maintainer scripts supposed to be working on non-ubuntu? I think it is fine to not support macOS
D4nte commented at 5:07 AM on October 7, 2019: none

Are the maintainer scripts supposed to be working on non-ubuntu? I think it is fine to not support macOS

According to my investigation this is not mac specific but due to the fact that a generated file is checked in yet not to be generated everytime a pre-requisite file is changed.
laanwj closed this on Oct 8, 2019
sidhujag referenced this in commit d5dfe39b08 on Oct 8, 2019
DrahtBot locked this on Dec 16, 2021

Contributors

fanquake

D4nte

MarcoFalke

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Build system good first issue

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#16882 qt: Re-generate translations before 0.19.0 #17068 qt: Always generate `bitcoinstrings.cpp` on `make translate`