Ubuntu-RTL Digest, Vol 6, Issue 10

Thu Dec 23 23:42:20 GMT 2010

It is a practical issue. Program source code is not intended to be handling
text from multiple locales. (In fact I think the C standard says source
files must be entirely ASCII). However, translation files do need to support
it. In this case when inserting part numbers in a translation LRO and RLO
are necessary to make the .po file intelligible and usable to the one
editing it.

While there are multiple ways to achieve the very same appearance on the
screen, most programs not written with this in mind will consider text with
different embedded overrides in different places  as completely different
text... thus resulting in malfunction on things like a database lookup or
even a simple string comparison.

While it would be relatively easy to modify msgfmt to treat directionality
codes the same way as it treats spaces, perhaps it isn't a bug and I just
need someone to explain how to deal with this situation effectively.

On 24 December 2010 09:10, <ubuntu-rtl-request at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> Send Ubuntu-RTL mailing list submissions to
>        ubuntu-rtl at lists.ubuntu.com
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>        https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-rtl
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>        ubuntu-rtl-request at lists.ubuntu.com
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>        ubuntu-rtl-owner at lists.ubuntu.com
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Ubuntu-RTL digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. gettext handling of LRO and RLO (Chris Scaife)
>   2. Re: gettext handling of LRO and RLO (Yaron Shahrabani)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:07:20 +1300
> From: Chris Scaife <scaife.chris at gmail.com>
> Subject: gettext handling of LRO and RLO
> To: ubuntu-rtl at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTi=uY50Pf9ULG9zosaHtX1dn=eZ6n6Fm2WP8ri3h at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>  I do understand that this list is intended for bug reporting.
> So I've come across a few issues with the gettext tools and I assume many
> here do use these for internationalization and localization.
>
> Attached is image of part of my ar_SA.po file in which I had to place
> standard Unicode LRO (or optionally RLO) overrides... just before the " of
> the translation. That way I can insert what is technically considered an
> Arabic "part number" containing a mixture of Arabic digits and letters. I
> don't want the LRO code to be part of my part number* inside* the quotes,
> or
> it won't be recognized and processed correctly by the software.
>
> All is well up to the point where I try to run "msgfmt" it gives me:
>
> > base.ar_SA.utf-8.po:49:8: syntax error
>
> base.ar_SA.utf-8.po:52:8: syntax error
>
> msgfmt: found 2 fatal errors
>
>
> Is there any specific bug list this would be more appropriate for?
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-rtl/attachments/20101224/91307c4a/attachment-0001.htm
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: lro_in_dot_po.png
> Type: image/png
> Size: 16827 bytes
> Desc: not available
> Url :
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-rtl/attachments/20101224/91307c4a/attachment-0001.png
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 22:10:36 +0200
> From: Yaron Shahrabani <sh.yaron at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: gettext handling of LRO and RLO
> To: The Ubuntu RTL Team <ubuntu-rtl at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTikdFJd7Rh+AmdXiZ6kPMiBHdw5a+qpxmhQc3U-b at mail.gmail.com<AANLkTikdFJd7Rh%2BAmdXiZ6kPMiBHdw5a%2BqpxmhQc3U-b at mail.gmail.com>
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Let me get this straight: You want to add LRO outside the quotes... why
> would you do that for?
> Think about it, lets say you wanted to do the same thing with an app
> written
> in C, you would type something like: printf(<LRO>"");, this command won't
> allow compilation since you typed LRO as part of the syntax, same for
> gettext, you can't add any symbols outside the quotes because of the exact
> same reason...
>
> Please, I may have misunderstood so please feel free to correct me if it is
> so...
>
> Kind regards,
> Yaron Shahrabani
>
> <Hebrew translator>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 9:07 PM, Chris Scaife <scaife.chris at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
>  I do understand that this list is intended for bug reporting.
> So I've come across a few issues with the gettext tools and I assume many
> here do use these for internationalization and localization.
>
> Attached is image of part of my ar_SA.po file in which I had to place
> standard Unicode LRO (or optionally RLO) overrides... just before the " of
> the translation. That way I can insert what is technically considered an
> Arabic "part number" containing a mixture of Arabic digits and letters. I
> don't want the LRO code to be part of my part number* inside* the quotes,
> or
> it won't be recognized and processed correctly by the software.
>
> All is well up to the point where I try to run "msgfmt" it gives me:
>
> base.ar_SA.utf-8.po:49:8: syntax error
>
> base.ar_SA.utf-8.po:52:8: syntax error
>
> msgfmt: found 2 fatal errors
>
>
> Is there any specific bug list this would be more appropriate for?
>
>
>
> --
> Ubuntu-RTL mailing list
> Ubuntu-RTL at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-rtl
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-rtl/attachments/20101223/98f76f4a/attachment.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> --
> Ubuntu-RTL mailing list
> Ubuntu-RTL at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-rtl
>
>
> End of Ubuntu-RTL Digest, Vol 6, Issue 10
> *****************************************
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-rtl/attachments/20101224/162dd739/attachment.htm 