tcl and gawk problems when compiling SRIL 1.5.3

[Andreas Stolcke]

Mats Svenson wrote:
> Dear SRILM users,
>  I have just tried to compile the current SRILM
> version and several problems surprised me.
>
> 1)  As to the tcl, the INSTALL file reads that:
> "TCL_INCLUDE, TCL_LIBRARY:  to whatever is needed to
> find the Tcl header files and library.
>     If Tcl is not available, set NO_TCL=X and leave
> the above variables empty."
>
> I have an openSUSE system (10.0) with tcl installed,
> but there's no "tcl.h" file present and I didn't find
> appropriate rpm to obtain it. If I use "NO_TCL=X",
> will it affect SRILM's functionality? What is tcl good
> for there?
>   
It is only used in some of the development test programs (not needed for 
a regular build and install).
There is no harm in not using it.
> 2) As to gawk, the INSTALL file reads that:
> Recent versions of gawk may not perform correct
> floating-point arithmetic unless either LC_NUMERIC=C
> or LC_ALL=C is set in the environment. This affects
> many of the scripts in utils/.
>
> Does it mean that with non-standard locales, SRILM
> does not work corretly? Does it affect model
> parameters estimation?
>   
One user sent me this observation, so I have no idea how widespread a 
problem it is.
SRILM should work fine with exotic locales for most everything.  The 
only issue is in the
gawk scripts that do arithmetic.  You should run the test suite to see 
if it is an issue for you.

Andreas