Problem with i18n("")

[Jacek Wojdel]

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On Fri, 08 Oct 1999, you wrote:
> That's fine, but what if I do i18n(text_var); and text_var evaluates to ""?
> Writing a check to see if text_var is empty would seem a little
> counter-intuitive, as well as unnecessary, if i18n() gave the correct
> output.

IMHO, you shouldn't ever use i18n(text_var). The point is that the argument of
i18n call should be a constant string that can be evaluated at compile time,
and it should be present right in the point where i18n is called. So assume you
want to internationalise the following code:

if (comning)
  strcpy(text_var, "Hello !");
if (going)
  strcpy(text_var, "Bye !");
printf(text_var);

You should do it as follows:

if (comning)
  strcpy(text_var, i18n("Hello !") );
if (going)
  strcpy(text_var, i18n("Bye !") );
printf(text_var);

However if you're tempted to do something like this:

strcpy( text_var, "Hello ");
if (global)
  strcat( text_var, "world.");
else
  strcat( text_var, "user.");
printf( text_var );

The only proper way to do it is:

if (global)
  strcpy( text_var, i18n("world.") );
else
  strcpy( text_var, i18n("user.") );
printf( i18n("Hello %s"), text_var );

And as a final note, from the translator's perspective it could be the best if
you could avoid using any runtime-generated text in communication with user, so
always instead of concatenating "File", filename, "couldn't be open" use
sprintf with i18n("File %s couldn't be open").
	Jacek

--
+-------------------------------------+
|from: J.C.Wojdel                     |
|      J.C.Wojdel at cs.tudelft.nl       |
+-------------------------------------+

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