`configure.in' at top level

1. Declare the package and version. This is done by a set of lines like these:

   PACKAGE=gettext
   VERSION=0.10
   AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED(PACKAGE, "$PACKAGE")
   AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED(VERSION, "$VERSION")
   AC_SUBST(PACKAGE)
   AC_SUBST(VERSION)
   

   Of course, you replace `gettext' with the name of your package, and `0.10' by its version numbers, exactly as they should appear in the packaged tar file name of your distribution (`gettext-0.10.tar.gz', here).
2. Declare the available translations. This is done by defining ALL_LINGUAS to the white separated, quoted list of available languages, in a single line, like this:

   ALL_LINGUAS="de fr"
   

   This example means that German and French PO files are available, so that these languages are currently supported by your package. If you want to further restrict, at installation time, the set of installed languages, this should not be done by modifying ALL_LINGUAS in `configure.in', but rather by using the LINGUAS environment variable (see section Magic for Installers).
3. Check for internationalization support. Here is the main m4 macro for triggering internationalization support. Just add this line to `configure.in':

   ud_GNU_GETTEXT
   

   This call is purposely simple, even if it generates a lot of configure time checking and actions.
4. Obtain some `libintl.h' header file. Once you called ud_GNU_GETTEXT in `configure.in', use:

   AC_LINK_FILES($nls_cv_header_libgt, $nls_cv_header_intl)
   

   This will create one header file `libintl.h'. The reason for this has to do with the fact that some systems, using the Uniforum message handling functions, already have a file of this name. The AC_LINK_FILES call has not been integrated into the ud_GNU_GETTEXT macro because there can be only one such call in a `configure' file. If you already use it, you will have to merge the needed AC_LINK_FILES within yours, by adding the first argument at the end of the list of your first argument, and adding the second argument at the end of the list of your second argument.
5. Have output files created. The AC_OUTPUT directive, at the end of your `configure.in' file, needs to be modified in two ways:

   AC_OUTPUT([existing configuration files intl/Makefile po/Makefile.in],
   [sed -e "/POTFILES =/r po/POTFILES" po/Makefile.in > po/Makefile
   existing additional actions])
   

   The modification to the first argument to AC_OUTPUT asks for substitution in the `intl/' and `po/' directories. Note the `.in' suffix used for `po/' only. This is because the distributed file is really `po/Makefile.in.in'. The modification to the second argument ensures that `po/Makefile' gets generated out of the `po/Makefile.in' just created, including in it the `po/POTFILES' produced by ud_GNU_GETTEXT. Two steps are needed because `po/POTFILES' can get lengthy in some packages, too lengthy in fact for being able to merely use an Autoconf substituted variable, as many seds cannot handle very long lines.

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