diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4f96331d2..509b7f052 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2001-10-03  Alan Modra  <amodra@bigpond.net.au>
+
+	* gettext.m4: Test po/POTFILES.in exists before trying to read.
+
 2001-09-29  Alexandre Oliva  <aoliva@redhat.com>
 
 	* Makefile.in (configure-target-gperf): Depend on $(ALL_GCC_CXX).
diff --git a/gettext.m4 b/gettext.m4
index 012bb818c..82a5277f2 100644
--- a/gettext.m4
+++ b/gettext.m4
@@ -256,8 +256,8 @@ __argz_count __argz_stringify __argz_next])
 
    dnl Generate list of files to be processed by xgettext which will
    dnl be included in po/Makefile.  But only do this if the po directory
-   dnl exists in srcdir.
-   if test -d $srcdir/po; then
+   dnl exists in srcdir and contains POTFILES.in.
+   if test -f $srcdir/po/POTFILES.in; then
       test -d po || mkdir po
       if test "x$srcdir" != "x."; then
 	 if test "x`echo $srcdir | sed 's@/.*@@'`" = "x"; then