#~ in po files

[Danilo Šegan]

Hi Ilya, Bob,

Today at 1:13, Bob Mauchin wrote:

> On 9/8/06, Ilya Petrov <ilya.muromec at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A lot of old translated strings was _moved_ into comments like this:
>>
>> #~ msgid "&Settings"
>> #~ msgstr "&Настройка"
>>
>> This example was from russian kdelibs.po. I saw the same thing in amarok.po.
>> What is this?
>
> This is actually old strings that are not used anymore. I'm not sure
> about that, but I think it's for coherent translations, I mean if some
> phrase was translated in an old string, and if a new one contains this
> same phrase...
> But you can safely remove those strings.

I usually suggest *against* removing those strings, except if you're
sure they won't reappear.  In gettext-parlance, they are called
"obsolete".

The thing is that they will be reused if exactly the same string
reappears in the future.  So, while there is no obvious harm in
removing them, if you do, you may need to translate them again in the
future (well, not with Rosetta, since it stores all suggestions ;).


Cheers,
Danilo