no-wrap again (Re: [xliff-tools] PO overview for XLIFF mapping guide)

[Bruno Haible]

Asgeir Frimannsson wrote:

>     no-wrap
>
>     Indicates that the text in the msgid field is not to be wrapped at
>     page with (usually 80 characters) which it usually is. Note that
>     this does not affect the wrapping of the actual source string, only
>     the representation of it in the PO file.

Correct.

Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> No, the no-wrap tells the translator, that the program will display the
> message as-is, that is, without changing any white-space using a
> monospaced font.  At least, the no-wrap flag in .c files was invented
> with this in mind.

This is not true, IMO.
  - The effects of  /* xgettext: no-wrap */  are not documented in the
    manual.
  - The vast majority of terminal-based programs do no line-wrapping on
    strings retrieved through gettext(). If your assumption was true,
    most strings should carry the 'no-wrap' attribute. They don't.

Really, 'no-wrap' is only an indicator for the tools when creating a PO file.
If a programmer wants to tell something to the translator, he uses plain
comments like

     /* TRANSLATORS: Please make the translation fit in 79 columns,
        assuming a monospaced font. */

> No, you cannot set the flag in the PO file using the --no-wrap switch.

Correct. --no-wrap makes the tools behave as if there was a 'no-wrap'
attribute on every message. But it doesn't add the attribute.

Bruno