[GRASS translations] Re: [GRASS5] french translation for GRASS-5.7 CVS

[Markus Neteler]

On Tue, Sep 28, 2004 at 05:01:49AM +0100, Glynn Clements wrote:
...
> 2. I note that the "keywrd" field in the history file is
> internationlised, in lib/gis/history.c, line 154:
> 
>     sprintf(hist->keywrd,_("generated by %s"), G_program_name());
> 
> I'm not sure that we should be internationalising strings which are
> written to files. The creator's locale setting should affect the text
> which they see, but shouldn't necessarily determine the text in any
> files which they create.

I think that strings which are written to files should not be 
internationalised. Once someone changes the language the confusion
would start.
 
> 3. UTF-8 isn't a good choice for message catalogs. Much of GRASS won't
> handle multi-byte encodings correctly (e.g. curses assumes 1 byte == 1
> character == 1 cell). I suggest using single-byte encodings such as
> ISO-8859-1 instead (FWIW, Alex' Russian translation is in KOI8-R).
> 
> E.g. regarding the French translation for the message in point 2:
> 
> 	#: ../lib/gis/history.c:154
> 	#, c-format
> 	msgid "generated by %s"
> 	msgstr "généré par %s"
> 
> If this text is written to a terminal which doesn't use UTF-8 (and
> UTF-8 terminals are still in the minority), it will appear as garbage;
> e.g. if the terminal uses ISO-8859-1, "généré" will appear as
> "généré".

What's the recommendation for the upcoming Asian support?

Markus