Re: address@hidden: Re: [PATCH] I18n flag for msgfmt]

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Behdad Esfahbod <address@hidden> writes:
> > Note: As a consequence, software developers should call gettext
> > on all of their singleton "%d" format strings too.
>
> That goes a bit too far, as "%d" is sometimes correct regardless of
> locale.  For example, POSIX requires that plain "diff" must use %d for
> line numbers, regardless of locale.  This makes it easier for a user
> in one locale to send a patch to a user in another locale.

Actually I don't agree here for a few reasons:

* Diff is a text utility, and <b>when using diff with Persian
messages</b> better you get Persian digits.

* Patches should be made by LANG=C diff.  You already get the
date in Persian.

> > The question is where should we start the fix?  Bottom-up, adding
> > support in glibc first, or no way, we should go the hard way, add it
> > in POSIX first, glic later?
>
> I'd say glibc first.  %I isn't in POSIX yet, is it?  At any rate the
> POSIX folks prefer to have implementations first.

So patches would come in :).

> On a related issue, many applications do not use %d to print numbers,
> so %Id won't suffice for them.  For example, there's no portable way
> to print off_t values using printf (until we can assume C99
> everywhere), so many applications use their own code that divide by 10
> and print the off_t values directly.  If gettext were to support the
> C99 printf formats (even on non-C99 hosts), that would address much of
> this problem, but it raises other problems and I worry that we may be
> trying to fold too much functionality into gettext.

Well, of course it's not, but those applications can be assumed
as needing internationalization work.  And I can't find any
reasonable example that you want to write such a weird variable
type (off_t, ...) with Persian numerals.  They should rarely
happen in typical applications that people like to see
translated.

behdad