[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#7000) Which message should be translated and which not

["Jason Short" <jshort@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7000 >

Raimar Falke wrote:

> Index: doc/HACKING
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /home/freeciv/CVS/freeciv/doc/HACKING,v
> retrieving revision 1.16
> diff -u -u -r1.16 HACKING
> --- doc/HACKING       2003/11/28 17:37:21     1.16
> +++ doc/HACKING       2004/01/06 20:56:26
> @@ -939,3 +939,12 @@
>    A suggested "diff_ignore" file is included in the Freeciv distribution.
>  
>  ===========================================================================
> +Internationalization (I18N)
> +===========================================================================
> +
> +Messages and text in general which are shown in the GUI should be
> +translated by using the "_()" macro. In addition freelog(LOG_NORMAL,
> +...) messages should be translated. The other loglevels (LOG_FATAL,
> +LOG_ERROR,LOG_VERBOSE, LOG_DEBUG) should NOT be translated.
> +
> +===========================================================================

Fine with me.

In the future it might be worthwhile to display both translated and 
non-translated versions of ERROR and FATAL messages.

   freelog(LOG_ERROR, N_("This is an error."));

   void freelog(...)
   {
      /* ... */
      fprintf(stderr, "%s", msg);
      fprintf(stderr, "%s", _(msg));
      /* ... */
   }

Another (orthogonal) option is to include the translation in the macro 
itself.  Something like

   log_normal("This is a normal message.");
   log_debug("This is a debug message.");

   #define log_normal(msg, ...) freelog(LOG_NORMAL, _(msg), ...)
   #define log_debug(msg, ...) freelog(LOG_DEBUG, msg, ...)

with suitable additions to the xgettext-running code.

jason