Re: Bug#448216: Support 3-letter codes for package description translations in APT (was: Re: Bug#448216: Waiting 2 years ago...)

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

(CCing as I'm not sure if you are subscribed to d-i18n)

> This is btw also true for the rest of the patch [0] as all my questions
> in the LongDesc thread [1] remained unanswered.

I can answer one part of it.

! And last but not least a question more or less only for the l10n-team:
! APT currently includes a (short) list of languages for which it doesn't
! download the Translation file with the short but with the long code.
! e.g. for an pt_BR local it would download the file Translation-pt_BR
! file instead of even trying to download Translation-pt. On the other
! hand Translation-files like cs_CZ are never touched - apt only tries to
! download the cs file. So what do you think: Should apt try downloading
! long and short always OR short only if long is not available? The
! problematic here would be (while currently looking at the l18n for
! unstable main [0]) that e.g. the very small cs_CZ file would hide the
! larger cs file... (btw: Also a suggestion which whitelist should be used
! would be good, e.g. i think it is unlikely that we get a de_?? in the
! future...)

A correct implementation of l10n support automatically falls back to the 
next best translation. The LANGUAGE environment variable can contain a 
list of languages to fall back to.

For example, Debian Installer sets this as follows by default:
- for Portuguese: LANGUAGE=pt:pt_BR:en
- for Brazilian: LANGUAGE=pt_BR:pt:en
Note that they are defined as fallbacks for eachother!

And for some Scandinavian languages it's even more fun:
- for Northern Sami: LANGUAGE=se_NO:nb_NO:nb:no_NO:no:nn_NO:nn:da:sv:en

I think, but I'm not sure, that if LANGUAGE is *not* set, an automatic 
fallback from e.g. cs_CZ to cs will happen (and maybe even if it is set).

It looks as if the APT download implementation has wanted to simplify this, 
or has maybe just wanted to limit downloads.

IMO if an 'xx_YY' file is downloaded APT should *always* also download the 
corresponding 'xx' file if it exists.

And I think that it would probably also be good if APT downloaded at least 
the first two or three languages listed in LANGUAGES (again both 'xx_YY' 
and 'xx' files for each). This would ensure that e.g. for Portuguese, 
Brazilian is available as fallback.

English should of course always be downloaded.

Cheers,
FJP