Build error on Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS

[jp31415926]

I get an error while building. I suspect I need to install a library. It would be good if configure or the error pointed users to the library that is missing.

Specifically, line 196 of the Makefile has the statement:
echo "$${cdcmd}rm -f $${lang}.gmo && $(GMSGFMT) -c --statistics --verbose -o $${lang}.gmo $${lang}.po"; \
cd $(srcdir) && rm -f $${lang}.gmo && $(GMSGFMT) -c --statistics --verbose -o t-$${lang}.gmo $${lang}.po && mv t-$${lang}.gmo $${lang}.gmo

It appears GMSGFMT is defined as ":".

Ubuntu version: Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
G++ version: g++ (Ubuntu 7.5.0-3ubuntu1~18.04) 7.5.0

Actually error:

Making all in po
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jp/dev/hldig/po'
test ! -f ./hldig.pot || \
  test -z "nb.gmo nl_NL.gmo ru.gmo" || make nb.gmo nl_NL.gmo ru.gmo
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jp/dev/hldig/po'
rm -f nb.gmo && : -c --statistics --verbose -o nb.gmo nb.po
mv: cannot stat 't-nb.gmo': No such file or directory
Makefile:194: recipe for target 'nb.gmo' failed
make[2]: *** [nb.gmo] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jp/dev/hldig/po'
Makefile:231: recipe for target 'stamp-po' failed
make[1]: *** [stamp-po] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jp/dev/hldig/po'
Makefile:497: recipe for target 'all-recursive' failed
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

[jp31415926]

Turns out I had to install the "gettext" package, re-ran configure, and now it works. Perhaps this should be a dependency for configure.