Re: binutils request related to translation

[Nick Clifton <nickc at cambridge dot redhat dot com>]

Hi Deniz,

> I would like to ask whether it is possible to edit the PO files for
> binutils so that each msgid is at least a full sentence.

Do you mean edit the PO files directly, or do you mean, edit the
source code so that the PO files that are generated from them are
changed ?

> For many languages, it is impossible to keep the word order and
> phrase order in the same order as in English. A phrase by phrase
> translation, when put together in the English word order will not
> result in an intelligible sentence for many languages.
> 
> To illustrate the problem: 
> ld-2.11.pot line 156:
> #: emultempl/pe.em:294
> msgid "  --enable-auto-image-base           Automatically choose image base 
> for DLLs\n"
> msgstr ""

> Would it be possible to edit the msgid strings in binutils to
> contain, as a minimum, a full sentence?

I apologise for my ignorance here, but how is the above example not a
full sentence ?  Surely "Automatically choose image base for DLLs" is
a complete sentence.  Do you require the presence of a period at the
end of the sentence ?  Or is it the "--enable-auto-image-base" that is
causing the problems ?  This is a command line switch which cannot be
altered or translated.  ie the switch will remain as
"--enable-auto-image-base" even if the current language environment
is, say, Turkish.

I though that it was important to keep the invariant part of a string,
(the "--enable-auto-image-base" in this example) present in the
message catalog, since although it cannot be changed, its location
can be moved.  Thus for example in some languages it might be
appropriate to translate the above as:

   <translated description>  --enable-auto-image-base

whereas for others it would be:

   --enable-auto-image-base   <translated description>

or even:

   <first part of translation>  --enable-auto-image-base  <second part of translation>


Cheers
        Nick