Re: po files in webwml
On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 01:27:21AM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 01:12:31AM +0100, Denis Barbier wrote:
> > > Right, doc/manuals.defs (line 119) is the intended sentence.
> > > I found that %s is substituted by fixed (not variable) text.
> > > I don't know the reason.
> >
> > See Josip's answer to my commit, he thinks that markup should
> > be avoided in PO files because this is error prone. This is
> > debatable, it is true that quotes and other special characters
> > are harmful under certain circumstances.
>
> No, I was not referring to that -- I was referring to translators who
> fuck things up.
Oh sorry, I misunderstood your point.
> For example, translate the link or the name of the program.
Ok, this is why I insert a comment just above, which appears in PO files.
> IMO the right fix here is to implement the $ stuff in perl's %s so that we
> can use it like we can use it in C programs, but hey...
There is an alternative, but I am afraid it will cause trouble, this is
why I did not mention it before. In mp4h 1.3.0, there is a new <printf>
tag which recognizes the $ stuff, so we could replace
<: printf "..." $foo, $bar :>
by
<printf "..." foo bar />
But the problem is that %1 and %2 are special, they are replaced by macro
attributes when it is expanded. So you cannot write
<define-tag foo><printf "%2$s %1$s" foo bar /></define-tag>
because %1 and %2 are replaced as soon as <foo> is encountered, before
<printf> is expanded.
This is why I believe that multiple %s should really be avoided.
Denis
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