Re: localisation in system wide daemons
Hi All!
On Fri, 2006-12-22 at 09:37 +0100, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:
>
> IMHO, either that software should be modified to support i18n text or the
> admin would have to choose wether he prefers to *understand* the logfile or
> to be able to parse it with automatic programs (I believe you are talking
> about tools such as logcheck or log-analysis [1][2]).
Yes, I talk about this programs.
>
> So it could be realy straightforward to convert a text mesage like this
> (from logcheck's kernel violation.d rules):
Yes, but if you try to convert all logcheck rule into all language, that
will be a lot more regular expression, and because of this log analyzing
will need a lot more time.
> Or even have logcheck use those PO files directly by introducing some tokens
> in its regexps.
I think it's may have problems. For example what about this log message:
syslog(_("This is a log message. problem='%m', severity='%s"),
severity);
What do I do if I want to hide this mesage, if severity lower or equal
to warning?
(I want to say that sometimes the log messages merged from two or more
part)
> For those logparsing programs that would not had i18n support, the user (or
> admin) would at least have the *option* to make a decission.
I think log messages (which may be sent in network, archived, read by
more than one user, etc.) wouldn't be changed in any circumvent.
Of course it's my opinion.
> Consider this situation: a user that can not even *read* english (since he
> doesn't understand the written language as he uses different script) should
> be able to weight which option is more important to him:
And every command name is translated? And every shell command too? I
don't think so.
And some log messages isn't too understandable, even if it's in
someone's native language.
For example in this log message:
2006-12-17T06:41:09+0100 fw ntpd[621]: sendto(148.6.0.1): Bad file descriptor
the good question is not that how can I translate it to Hungarian,
because it will not help. The good question is, what it cause, and how
can I avoid this.
But tho answer this an expert is more important than the exact meaning
of the message. And as Gabor said for this a stable form of log is very
important.
> a.- be able to use software that generates reports from logfiles with english
> messages, and not being able to understand the logfiles themselves and
> (probably) not the reports either (if the reporting software is not i18nised)
>
> b.- be able to read the non-english logfiles, but unable to use software to
> geenrate reports or summarise logs (until such a software is adapted to
> support non-english messages).
Hmm. It's a hard question. It's especially hard because I think that to
be a system administrator it's important to know english. And not just
because the log messages, but because the commands and documentations.
And I think an average home user never look into the logs, only if
somebody ask he to do it.
So as a conclusion, I think a.- is my answer.
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