Re: xstrtol.h

[Jim Meyering]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> wrote:
> Eric Blake wrote:
>> > The lib/gettext.h file already arranges for this (with the i18n domain name
>> > being not just "gnulib", but "findutils-gnulib" or similar).
>>
>> That won't work in headers.  For .c files, they are compiled as part of
>> the gnulib library, where the DEFAULT_TEXT_DOMAIN is in effect.  But for
>> the .h files, such as xstrtol.h, they are compiled as part of the main
>> program, where gettext() is no longer a macro to the <pobase>-domain.  It
>> looks like we'll have to edit any use of gettext in gnulib headers to
>> instead use something from a .c file
>
> There is only one use of gettext() in header files in gnulib, the one in
> xstrtol.h, and it needs to be revised anyway: It violates the principle
> that the translator must be presented whole sentences. Things like
>
>   gettext ("invalid %s `%s'")
>
> where the first %s comes from
>
>   STRTOL_FATAL_ERROR (spec, _("block size"), e);
>
> are not translatable to languages (such as German), where the adjective's
> flexion depends on the gender of the noun.
>
> The macro should be rewritten to take three localized strings as arguments,
> instead of just one.

Hi Bruno,

What do you suggest to use as those strings?
I.e., are you suggesting to convert each of the 5 uses of
STRTOL_FATAL_ERROR in coreutils from e.g.,

  STRTOL_FATAL_ERROR (optarg, _("skip argument"), s_err);

to

  STRTOL_FATAL_ERROR (optarg,
                      _("invalid skip argument `%s'"),
                      _("invalid character following skip argument in `%s'"),
                      _("skip argument `%s' too large"),
                      s_err);

That sort of "unfactoring" would be hard for me to swallow.
It doesn't seem justifiable to do that to the code solely
to emit marginally improved diagnostics.