Re: splitting /var/lib/dpkg/status and handling desc translation (was: ddts notification)
On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 02:35:46PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Martin Quinson wrote:
> > But if you put the translation in the control file, you have to add almost
> > hundred fields, on per locale: Description-fr ; Description-fr_FR ;
> > Description-fr_CA ; Description-fr_BE just to have the more used french
> > variants (and no, it would not be acceptable to merge all country variant of
> > the language in the language. Think about pt_BR and pt_PT).
>
> Bogus. If you buy wordperfect does it have 96 different translations
> in it? Of course not, they only put in a few important ones.
If I buy Word, there is only one language in it. Mine. Is it the way to go ?
I agree with the fact we should select the 'most important language'. I just
wanted to point out that this approach does not scale *at all*.
> > Would we declare one new field in <dpkg>/lib/parse.c:fieldinfo for each one,
> > choose the most used one, have a new kind of 'variable field', designating
> > the Description, allowing a parameter designing the language used ?
>
> Please let go of the idea that dpkg should keep a list of all descriptions
> in memory, that is simply not reasonable. In fact forget about dpkg internals
> completely, they are completely irrelevant to this discussion.
Should I understand 'keep away from dpkg' ?
Of course dpkg does not have to keep all language in memory. But to update
the status files, it has to parse it and write it, don't it ?
> > Should we make two files, like status-essential and status-extra, or split
> > it further ? Moreover, what should be the format of the new file(s) ? Also
> > rfc822-complient, or something else ?
>
> Does it really matter?
It depends on if you plan to acctually implement it one day...
Bye, Mt.
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