gettext - was: Re: ASCII and Unicode Quotation Marks

[Andries.Brouwer@xxxxxx]

    From owner-linux-utf8@xxxxxxxxxxxx Sun Jan 30 12:45:34 2000

    Andries.Brouwer@xxxxxx  wrote on 21.12.99:

    > The new construction is nicer in some respects, but worse
    > in other respects. For example, it uses the English string
    > as a key, and I twice encountered the situation where the
    > proper translation did depend on the context.
    > Message catalogs have no problems, but gettext cannot easily
    > handle this.

    In cases such as these, _if_ you're using an English .po, you can easily  
    add a tag to the in-program message to disambiguate. It should not be a  
    problem to word it in a way that it still works as fallback.

    MfG Kai

Oh, of course one can kludge around gettext deficiencies,
it is not a serious problem, but it is a tiny annoyance.

For small homogeneous projects gettext() is easier; for large
or inhomogeneous projects the message catalog approach is more powerful
and more convenient.


[Why homogeneous? The English "line" is translated into Dutch by "lijn"
when we are talking about a straight line, or about a connection or so,
but by "regel" when it refers to a line of text. In a small package
usually only one meaning will occur and there are no problems.]
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