Re: [PATCH v2 1/9] Makefile: sort "po/git.pot" by file location

>
>
> On Thu, May 19 2022, Jiang Xin wrote:
>
> > From: Jiang Xin <zhiyou.jx@alibaba-inc.com>
> >
> > Before feeding xgettext with more C souce files which may be ignored
> > by various compiler conditions, add new option "--sort-by-file" to
> > xgettext program to create stable message template file "po/git.pot".
> >
> > With this update, the newly generated "po/git.pot" will has the same
> > entries while in a different order. We won't checkin the newly generated
> > "po/git.pot", because we will remove it from tree in a later commit.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Jiang Xin <zhiyou.jx@alibaba-inc.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
> > ---
> >  Makefile | 1 +
> >  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
> > index f8bccfab5e..83e968e2a4 100644
> > --- a/Makefile
> > +++ b/Makefile
> > @@ -2706,6 +2706,7 @@ XGETTEXT_FLAGS = \
> >       --force-po \
> >       --add-comments=TRANSLATORS: \
> >       --msgid-bugs-address="Git Mailing List <git@vger.kernel.org>" \
> > +     --sort-by-file \
> >       --from-code=UTF-8
> >  XGETTEXT_FLAGS_C = $(XGETTEXT_FLAGS) --language=C \
> >       --keyword=_ --keyword=N_ --keyword="Q_:1,2"
>
> I'm not opposed to this change, but between this and 2/9 I'm still
> unsure what the aim is exactly, and if the results are desired.

> In 2/9 you correctly point out that we have messages we've missed due to
> LOCALIZED_C being platform-specific.
>
> That should never happen (although your implementation in 2/9 may have
> some small issues, I'll reply there separately), i.e. we should always
> have "make pot" generate the same po/git.pot from the same commit
> whether you're on linux, mac os x etc.

> But AFAICT we have a "stable" sort order now, it's in whatever order we
> feed the files to xgettext, which ultimately comes down to e.g. the list
> of $(LIB_OBJS) in the Makefile.
>
> I've been looking over the libintl documentation to see what exactly
> these sort options do, and how they differ from the default, and it's
> not really described.
>
> AFAICT the xgettext behavior we have now is that we'll process the files
> we have in order, and for those files extract the messages we have as we
> see them.
>
> One fringe benefit of that is that e.g. "make pot
> XGETTEXT_INCLUDE_TESTS=Y" (which I think I've only ever used, and
> probably only ~10 years ago) will get added at the end, but now it'll be
> added wherever t/t0200 sorts.
>
> Then because compose the builtin objs and lib objs by concatenation, but
> don't $(sort) them in the Makefile most of this change is due to us
> e.g. sorting builtin/* before parse-options.c or whatever.
>
> But oddly we also have cases like this:
>
>         strbuf_addf(&header, print_file_item_data.modified_fmt,
>                     _("staged"), _("unstaged"), _("path"));
>
> Before this we'd list those in that order in the git.pot, but now
> because of --sort-by-file we'll list any messages on the same line in
> sorted msgid order, not in the orderd they appear in. Another example is
> e.g. this in builtin/blame.c:
>
>     OPT_STRING_LIST(0, "ignore-rev", &ignore_rev_list, N_("rev"), N_("ignore <rev> when blaming"))
>
> Where before we'd list them in that order, but now it's with "ignore.."
> before "rev".

> I think this change would be easier to follow & explain if you first
> made this change:
>
>         diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
>         index 61aadf3ce88..3726fe8064a 100644
>         --- a/Makefile
>         +++ b/Makefile
>         @@ -2715,10 +2715,9 @@ XGETTEXT_FLAGS_SH = $(XGETTEXT_FLAGS) --language=Shell \
>                 --keyword=gettextln --keyword=eval_gettextln
>          XGETTEXT_FLAGS_PERL = $(XGETTEXT_FLAGS) --language=Perl \
>                 --keyword=__ --keyword=N__ --keyword="__n:1,2"
>         -LOCALIZED_C = $(C_OBJ:o=c) $(LIB_H) $(GENERATED_H)
>         -LOCALIZED_SH = $(SCRIPT_SH)
>         -LOCALIZED_SH += git-sh-setup.sh
>         -LOCALIZED_PERL = $(SCRIPT_PERL)
>         +LOCALIZED_C = $(sort $(C_OBJ:o=c) $(LIB_H) $(GENERATED_H))
>         +LOCALIZED_SH = $(sort $(SCRIPT_SH) git-sh-setup.sh)
>         +LOCALIZED_PERL = $(sort $(SCRIPT_PERL))
>
>          ifdef XGETTEXT_INCLUDE_TESTS
>          LOCALIZED_C += t/t0200/test.c

> Which would sort things within C, SH and Perl files (but not among
> them). Then this change would AFAICT only:
>
>  * Change that "within one line" sort order, as noted above
>  * Sort across C/SH/Perl.
>
> I'm mostly "meh" on the result, but it's also because I genuinely don't
> get what the goal was. Is it because in 2/9 you'll end up using
> $(FOUND_C_SOURCES), which we derive from either "git ls-files" or
> "find", the latter of which has an unstable sort order?