`make install-pdf` fails when using the flex release tarball flex-2.6.4.tar.gz

[submachine]

Generating a release tarball involves copying several gettext related files from the system on which the tarball is generated, including a po/Makefile.in.in that is in the current tarball. This file does not play well with the usual install-pdf make target, causing the installation to error out:

Making install-pdf in po
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/ashankar/build/flex/po'
make[1]: *** No rule to make target 'install-pdf'.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/ashankar/build/flex/po'
make: *** [Makefile:539: install-pdf-recursive] Error 1

This has already been fixed in gettext (0.21): http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=commitdiff;h=e5a008ae54ff

I expect that the next release tarball will have this fix, but I wanted to file this issue anyway so it isn't missed.

[Mightyjo]

Point taken, we should update gettext. 0.21 might get annoying. Looks like it's available in Ubuntu 21 and similar development channels. We can build it, sure. Building autopoint and gettext slows the automated build system to a crawl though.

NB: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS is still on gettext 0.19.8.1, which is 4 years old. The fix didn't appear in gettext until 0.20, about 2 years ago. Not sure why my favorite distro skipped 0.20.

At any rate, Flex itself doesn't use the install-pdf target, so perhaps this can wait.