Re: an i18n sample

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>]

On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 06:42:28AM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:20:52 -0400
> > From: Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>
> > Cc: ibr@ata.cs.hun.edu.tr, gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
> > 
> > Sorry, my wording was not clear; I understood your suggestion.  I still
> > disagree with it.  I think that a type whose name is "<unnamed>" or
> > _("<unnamed>") should recieve the same output as a type whose TYPE_NAME
> > is NULL.
> 
> I don't understand what you mean by "should receive the same output".
> Can you explain?

I mean that I believe the string that GDB displays to the user for
these two cases, i.e. an unnamed type or a type whose name is set to
<unnamed>, should always be the same.  I don't see much point in
moving maintenance of that ideal to the translators, but you know more
about this than I do :-)

> > A format string is a different sort of problem than a partial sentence.
> > It's a complete grammatical construct, but we have to take what steps
> > we can to make sure that the parts that get substituted in make sense
> > in any language.
> 
> Given a string "<unnamed>", how would a translator know that it is
> supposed to be a substitution for %s in the format string?  The only
> way to know that is to read the source, which a translator normally
> does not do.  Without knowing the context of "<unnamed>", the
> translator is unlikely to find a good translation for it.

That's true.  But it expresses a concept - an object without a name.
Would "<unnamed type>" be better?

I think I understand what your objection was, now.  I had
completely failed to get your point; so my kibitzing is withdrawn.
I thought you were calling the format string a partial sentence.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz