Re: Bug#129294: gcc-2.95: cannot read translated messages

["Martin v. Loewis" <martin@v.loewis.de>]

> Since we will have to prepare Woody's release soon, I think
> the best way is to disable translation just now tempolarily
> and then start the investigation of this problem.

I recommend the same thing. Gettext support in gcc 2.95 is known not
to work; the GCC maintainers even claim that it is known not work in
gcc 3.0, and that you need atleast gcc 3.1 for proper gettext support
in GCC.

> Note that this problem is fixed in gcc-3.0 but I think
> gcc-2.95 is important because it is the main C compiler
> for Woody.

While the compiler itself is important, I wonder how important
translated messages in that release are. Most gcc users don't expect
them, so they will be rather annoyed if something breaks because of
the catalogs (e.g. post-processors of gcc output have already been
observed to break).

Also, I guess none of the catalogs has been peer-reviewed. Given that
GCC is complex matter, it is likely that there are translation errors
that will confuse users.

Furthermore, the gcc 2.95 catalog contains 1000-something messages,
whereas the 3.x catalogs contain over 4000 messages. So many of the
messages are not marked in 2.95; users will get mixed output from gcc
if the catalogs are used.

Because of these obstacles, I'd recommend to delay inclusion of the
catalogs for the 3.x series (starting with 3.0). Any remaining
problems might then be solved by back-porting changes from 3.1; this
also gives translators more time to review their translations.

Regards,
Martin