Re: [Freeciv-Dev] i18n for all eternity

[Artur Biesiadowski <abies@xxxxxxxxx>]

Falk Hueffner wrote:

> 
> Uhm, I know _(), but what does N_() do?

_(txt) does two things - first it is recognized by xgettext and in
program is replaced with call to gettext() (or whatever it is called - I
do not remember). N_(txt) is only spotted with xgettext and not
translated explicitly. 

It is useful in tables which have to be constant at compile time (even
non-constant table can have problems as initialization order can be
incorrect) . Other uses include for example marking menu names - if you
want some config files to use untranslated menu name you can do
something like this

addMenu(N_("File"));

void addMenu(const char * origName)
{
        const char * translated = gettext(origName);
        menu = reallyAddMenu(translated);
        registerMenu(origName, menu);
}

Etc, etc.

Artur