Subject: [PATCH v3 1/2] macOS: make Homebrew use configurable

From: René Scharfe <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2025 19:53:37 +0100

On macOS we opportunistically use Homebrew-installed versions of
gettext(3) and msgfmt(1).  Make that behavior configurable by providing
make variables to disable Homebrew usage (NO_HOMEBREW), to allow using a
non-default installation location (HOMEBREW_PREFIX), and to control the
use of the individual items (USE_HOMEBREW_GETTEXT, USE_HOMEBREW_MSGFMT).

Precisely Link the gettext keg (the opt/gettext subdirectory) instead of
risking to link random other Homebrew-installed libraries as well.

Signed-off-by: René Scharfe <[email-masked]>
---
 Makefile         | 28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 config.mak.uname | 28 ++++++----------------------
 2 files changed, 34 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index cf3f4b585f..a97e9e4d7d 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -100,6 +100,18 @@ include shared.mak
 # specify your own (or DarwinPort's) include directories and
 # library directories by defining CFLAGS and LDFLAGS appropriately.
 #
+# Define NO_HOMEBREW if you don't want to use libraries and commands
+# installed by Homebrew.
+#
+# Define HOMEBREW_PREFIX if you have Homebrew installed in a non-default
+# location on macOS or on Linux and want to use it.
+#
+# Define USE_HOMEBREW_GETTEXT to link against the gettext library
+# installed by Homebrew, if present.
+#
+# Define USE_HOMEBREW_MSGFMT to use the msgfmt command installed by
+# Homebrew to compile message catalogs during build, if present.
+#
 # Define NO_APPLE_COMMON_CRYPTO if you are building on Darwin/Mac OS X
 # and do not want to use Apple's CommonCrypto library.  This allows you
 # to provide your own OpenSSL library, for example from MacPorts.
@@ -1692,6 +1704,22 @@ ifeq ($(uname_S),Darwin)
 	PTHREAD_LIBS =
 endif
 
+ifndef NO_HOMEBREW
+ifdef HOMEBREW_PREFIX
+ifdef USE_HOMEBREW_GETTEXT
+ifeq ($(shell test -d $(HOMEBREW_PREFIX)/opt/gettext && echo y),y)
+	BASIC_CFLAGS += -I$(HOMEBREW_PREFIX)/opt/gettext/include
+	BASIC_LDFLAGS += -L$(HOMEBREW_PREFIX)/opt/gettext/lib
+endif
+endif
+ifdef USE_HOMEBREW_MSGFMT
+ifeq ($(shell test -x $(HOMEBREW_PREFIX)/opt/gettext/msgfmt && echo y),y)
+	MSGFMT = $(HOMEBREW_PREFIX)/opt/gettext/msgfmt
+endif
+endif
+endif
+endif
+
 ifdef NO_LIBGEN_H
 	COMPAT_CFLAGS += -DNO_LIBGEN_H
 	COMPAT_OBJS += compat/basename.o
diff --git a/config.mak.uname b/config.mak.uname
index 1691c6ae6e..54e3a26649 100644
--- a/config.mak.uname
+++ b/config.mak.uname
@@ -149,29 +149,13 @@ ifeq ($(uname_S),Darwin)
 	CSPRNG_METHOD = arc4random
 	USE_ENHANCED_BASIC_REGULAR_EXPRESSIONS = YesPlease
 
-	# Workaround for `gettext` being keg-only and not even being linked via
-	# `brew link --force gettext`, should be obsolete as of
-	# https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/53489
-        ifeq ($(shell test -d /usr/local/opt/gettext/ && echo y),y)
-		BASIC_CFLAGS += -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/opt/gettext/include
-		BASIC_LDFLAGS += -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/opt/gettext/lib
-                ifeq ($(shell test -x /usr/local/opt/gettext/bin/msgfmt && echo y),y)
-			MSGFMT = /usr/local/opt/gettext/bin/msgfmt
-                endif
-	# On newer ARM-based machines the default installation path has changed to
-	# /opt/homebrew. Include it in our search paths so that the user does not
-	# have to configure this manually.
-	#
-	# Note that we do not employ the same workaround as above where we manually
-	# add gettext. The issue was fixed more than three years ago by now, and at
-	# that point there haven't been any ARM-based Macs yet.
-        else ifeq ($(shell test -d /opt/homebrew/ && echo y),y)
-		BASIC_CFLAGS += -I/opt/homebrew/include
-		BASIC_LDFLAGS += -L/opt/homebrew/lib
-                ifeq ($(shell test -x /opt/homebrew/bin/msgfmt && echo y),y)
-			MSGFMT = /opt/homebrew/bin/msgfmt
-                endif
+        ifeq ($(uname_M),arm64)
+		HOMEBREW_PREFIX = /opt/homebrew
+        else
+		HOMEBREW_PREFIX = /usr/local
         endif
+	USE_HOMEBREW_GETTEXT = YesPlease
+	USE_HOMEBREW_MSGFMT = YesPlease
 
 	# The builtin FSMonitor on MacOS builds upon Simple-IPC.  Both require
 	# Unix domain sockets and PThreads.
-- 
2.52.0