Re: localisation in system wide daemons
On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 10:45:07PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > AFAICS, post-processing of log messages would be the most reliable
> > method to give admins localized logs while also making it feasible
> > for upstreams to support user requests. Any problems that would make
> > it hard to post-process English logs for localization would apply
> > n-fold to post-processing non-English logs for translation back to
> > English.
> But this style of post-processing would occur only when there was a
> support request that required an english speaker to look at the logs;
> the user translating it by hand in this case (or using an appropriate
> locale, or finding someone who could translate it or backtracking from
> the message to english using the same mapping that the program does)
> seems perfectly reasonable to me.
But translations aren't guaranteed to be reversible, even in the context of
the limited set of messages used by a particular program.
> Post-processing seems to require a set of fragile dependencies between
> the log processing software and the actual software generating the
> messages unless someone standardizes on a central repository of
> messages in different languages [and would make casual log checking
> slightly more difficult.]
If implemented right, checking the post-processed localized logs *would* be
casual.
> > For best results, we would have a logging protocol that logs a
> > message ID plus arguments, so that formatting into English /or/ into
> > other languages would follow the same, sscanf-free process. :)
> And a central repository of all of the message Ids and blocks which
> are assigned to speciifc programs and whatever other standards are
> needed to implement it... I suppose it would be optimal, but I don't
> think it'll happen anytime soon.
Um, this wouldn't need to be any more centralized than existing gettext
handling is today.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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