Re: Some questions about plural forms

[Bruno Haible]

Michał Sawicz wrote:
> The usecase is this:
> 
> Singular: A plugin "Foo" is to be installed
> Plural: 3 plugins are to be installed

This distinction between singular and plural works only in Germanic
languages; see the gettext doc [1]. What you really need here is
to special-case n = 1:

  if (num == 1)
    gettext("A plugin %(string)s is to be installed")
  else
    ngettext("One plugin is to be installed",
             "%(number)d plugins are to be installed.",
             num)
    % { 'number' : num }

The English string "One plugin is to be installed" will never be seen by
the end user (because it would only appear if num == 1), but is necessary
so that gettext's plural handling mechanism can be used.

> > POEdit is right. msgid_plural is the general form of the argument list,
> > whereas msgid is only a special case.
> 
> What's the point in having msgid then, when there's no respective
> msgstr?

It serves when no translation is present.

Bruno

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Plural-forms.html