po header to decide about word wrapping (?)

[Santiago Vila]

Hello.

Some time ago the following report was sent.
[ I'll try to summarize a little bit ].

Hideki Yamane writes:

  After a long time, I translate ja.po and run debconf-updatepo.
  But it results with no word wrapping. Is this correct behavior?

  I tried to downgrad po-debconf package from snapshot.debian.net
  but no change.

Denis Barbier replies:

   Please check with a package containing a Japanese translation.
   If debconf displays your translation without problem, there is
   no bug.

Hideki Yamane replies:

   debconf-updatepo works "msgmerge -U foo.po template.pot",
   but "-U" or "--update" option doesn't work about word wrapping in
   its po file :(
   Just "msgmerge ja.po templates.pot -o ja.po" works fine.

Then Denis Barbier replies:

  I understand now, thanks for explaining.  But the problem is that most
  languages prefer reformatting lines, because it is easier to track
  changes.  I would like to reassign this bugreport to gettext, and
  ask that a header field be added to PO files so that translators
  can decide that their files should not be reformatted.
  Do you agree with this approach?

and finally Hideki Yamane writes:

 It's nice that translators can decide to do or not.
 I'll reassign this bug to gettext.

and the bug was reassigned to gettext.


So, apparently, what they ask is a header in the po file indicating
whether the translator wish to have word wrapping or not.

Personally, I'm not sure such thing would be desirable or a good idea,
as the Translation Project, for example, converts everything to
"canonical format" and encourages translators to do the same,
but just in case I'm forwarding this report here.

Thanks.