Re: Errors in the coreutils-6.9 PO file

[Bruno Haible]

Eric Blake wrote:
> > msgid ""
> > "\n"
> > "  ARG1 * ARG2       arithmetic product of ARG1 and ARG2\n"
> > "  ARG1 / ARG2       arithmetic quotient of ARG1 divided by ARG2\n"
> > "  ARG1 % ARG2       arithmetic remainder of ARG1 divided by ARG2\n"
> >
> > A bare percentage sign in a c-format string will be reported as an error
> > in the translation.
> 
> But the string in question occurs inside fputs, not printf.  So why is
> xgettext marking it as c-format?  Bruno?

xgettext marks it as c-format, because it looks like a C format string,
and the possible negative effects of doing so (a mail from translator to
programmer is needed) are smaller than the possible negative effects of
not marking it as c-format (program crashes in particular locales).

There is also an anti-heuristic, that recognizes that things like "%2%" are
most likely _not_ intended as c-format strings. But it does not apply here.

Bruno