<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Hi,<br>
<br>
I was looking through the Journal Message Catalog spec [1] and I
wanted to say kudos. About time there was something like this for
linux apps.<br>
<br>
In reading the spec, I do have a concern about the fact that the
spec seems to want to interleave the various supported locales
within one catalog file (ie. a text file). According to [1] the
different translated messages within the catalog would be suffixed
by the typical LL_CC (language_country) pattern. <br>
<br>
I think this could be both confusing for people that are actually
doing the translation and problematic for organizations that want to
translate. It might be useful to allow for something like locale
specific PO (gettext portable object) files. This would allow
organizations to send the PO files off to different translation
centers and have each translation center work independently rather
than collectively on one monster file with interleaved locales.<br>
<br>
Further, this would allow the translators to leave the 'message ID'
alone and not tamper with it by adding a 'suffix'. The locale
meta-data could be conveyed by encoding this information into the
file name in a manner similar to Java[2] or gettext[3]. <br>
<br>
Note: I'm not saying encoding locale into the filename is the best
way it is just a common way of delivery. You could, of course, use
some other sort of meta-data and bind all locales into one binary
dictionary which is what is currently happening (I think).<br>
<br>
Thoughts?<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Keith<br>
<br>
<br>
[1]
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/catalog">http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/catalog</a><br>
[2] Java style:<br>
baseName.properties<br>
baseName_language.properties<br>
baseName_language_country.properties<br>
baseName_language_country_variant.properties<br>
[3] Gettext style:<br>
LL/LC_MESSAGES <br>
LL_CC/LC_MESSAGES<br>
<br>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
</body>
</html>