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[Synaptic-devel] Language issue regarding the use of Gettext
From: |
Jean-Michel POURE |
Subject: |
[Synaptic-devel] Language issue regarding the use of Gettext |
Date: |
Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:23:45 +0200 |
User-agent: |
KMail/1.5.2 |
Dear Friends,
First of all, thank you for this marvelous piece of sofware. Synaptic
interface improved constantly to reach a level of excellence.
I use Synaptic daily with great pleasure. Therefore, I would like to update
the French translation. But ... looking at Synaptic code, I would like to
underline a serious issue about the use of Gettext.
1) Problem
Several times, sentences are build by the program.
For example, in indexcopy.cc, line 224:
cout << _(" Processed by using Prefix '") << Prefix <<
_("' and chop ") << Chop << endl;
Most languages in the world, even in Europe, are ***very*** different from
English. If you hard code an English sentences, they will not be
translatable.
Some languages do not have verbs, others do not have adjectives, others
aggregate nouns together. Some language write from left to right. You would
not believe how different languages are. Languages are different because
humans are different. You can't hard-code that using C.
2) Solution
The solution is to write complete sentences and/or use %s variable
placeholders. But beware the use of %s. For example, you cannot write:
"Change %s"
where %s is "password" or "username".
For example, in Hungarian:
# standard
#: standard input:447 input:448
msgid "Change Password" (two words)
is translated by
msgstr "Jelszóváltás" (one word)
In this case you have to write "Change password" and "Change username" without
using %s variable placehorders.
You can only use "%s" variable placehorders for user entries or names (product
names, machine names, etc...).
Example:
"an error occured when connecting to %s server"
where %s is "foo".
I hope this helps.
3) Fixing
If you would like to translate Synaptic to all languages of the Debian project
(>50), you need to fix Synaptic writing complete sentences using %s
variables. Could it be done quickly? Synaptic is such a central application
that it needs fixing.
Do not hesitate to contact me on the list for any question. If you fix the
main entries, I can review the resulting .pot file to verify all entries
comply with most languages.
Best regards, Jean-Michel Pouré
- [Synaptic-devel] Language issue regarding the use of Gettext,
Jean-Michel POURE <=