Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Localise error headers

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Mon, Jan 09, 2017 at 01:43:15PM +0100, Michael J Gruber wrote:

> > I can't say I'm excited about having matching "_" variants for each
> > function. Are we sure that they are necessary? I.e., would it be
> > acceptable to just translate them always?
> 
> We would still need to mark the strings, e.g.
> 
> die(N_("oopsie"));
> 
> and would not be able to opt out of translating in the code (only in the
> po file, by not providing a translation).

I meant more along the lines of: would it be OK to just always translate
the prefix, even if the message itself is not translated? I.e.,

diff --git a/usage.c b/usage.c
index 82ff13163..8e5400f57 100644
--- a/usage.c
+++ b/usage.c
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ static NORETURN void usage_builtin(const char *err, va_list params)
 
 static NORETURN void die_builtin(const char *err, va_list params)
 {
-	vreportf("fatal: ", err, params);
+	vreportf(_("fatal: "), err, params);
 	exit(128);
 }

> In any case, the question is whether we want to tell the user
> 
> A: B
> 
> where A is in English and B is localised, or rather localise both A and
> B (for A in "error", "fatal", "warning"...).
> 
> For localising A and B, we'd need this series or something similar. For
> keeping the mix, we don't need to do anything ;)

What I wrote above would keep the mix, but switch it in the other
direction.

And then presumably that mix would gradually move to 100% consistency as
more messages are translated. But the implicit question is: are there
die() messages that should never be translated? I'm not sure.

-Peff