Arch of .mo Files

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Dec 3, 2010, at 06:34, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> On Dec 2, 2010, at 23:01, Jeremy Lavergne wrote:
> 
>> I have a package that is on the path of being noarch, but `file` claims that the produced .mo files are a specific endian. Are .mo files architecture-specific?
> 
> .mo files are machine-specific (that's what the "m" in ".mo" stands for). So I don't know what that means for MacPorts arch indication. If we're keeping an eye toward eventual binary distribution, I guess this means we would need separate .mo files for big- and little-endian machines. But that doesn't fit neatly into MacPorts supported_arch setting.

I would really hate it if a port had to be considered architecture-specific, for the sole reason that it uses a gettext message catalog. Perhaps it's like TIFF files: there are big- and little-endian TIFF formats, but libtiff can read either format regardless what endianness it's running on. Can someone please test whether a message catalog compiled on a Mac of one endianness works on a Mac of the other endianness?