Periods at end of messages.

[John Darrington]

Some of our message strings end with a '.'  Whilst others do not.
This is inconsistent.

The GNU Coding standards say that messages from interactive programs
should not end in a period [1] .

So I'm considering this patch:

diff --git a/src/libpspp/message.c b/src/libpspp/message.c
index de3dab8d..0a57e217 100644
--- a/src/libpspp/message.c
+++ b/src/libpspp/message.c
@@ -347,6 +347,16 @@ process_msg (struct msg *m)
 void
 msg_emit (struct msg *m)
 {
+  if (m->text [strlen (m->text) - 1] == '.')
+    {
+      if (0 == strcmp ("C", setlocale (LC_MESSAGES, NULL)))
+       {
+         fprintf (stderr, "Message \"%s\" should not end in a period.",
+                  m->text);
+         abort ();
+       }
+    }
+

Lots of source files and tests would need to be fixed too.  Thoughts?


[1] https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Errors

-- 
Avoid eavesdropping.  Send strong encrypted email.
PGP Public key ID: 1024D/2DE827B3 
fingerprint = 8797 A26D 0854 2EAB 0285  A290 8A67 719C 2DE8 27B3
See http://sks-keyservers.net or any PGP keyserver for public key.