Re: [PATCH 1/1] Mark messages for translations

From: Alexander Shopov <ash@kambanaria.org>
Date: Jan 15, 2018, 09:16 UTC
Message-ID: <CAP6f5M=HdjfQT+oO76sMfcD7zOfajeukh_VxSL_diqEsCWAYWw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAP6f5MnaMiqEMbGW_xj6X495jF=txpzeq+DEHOkz7VCg2D6D9w@mail.gmail.com>

And again, sigh:

>>   const char git_usage_string[] =

....

>>   const char git_more_info_string[] =
> It is not obvious to me where git_usage_string is looked up in the
> message catalog. It is used that way in builtin/help.c ..

I wanted to be consistent with the current state of the file. This is the same way const char git_more_info_string[] is defined and initialized. Having it this way saves the lookup on each usage I guess but any performance gains will be negligible. Is there a convention?

> We have settled with lower-case letters at the beginning of error
> messages. (See Documentation/CodingGuidelines, "Error Messages".) You
> could fix that while you are touching die, die_errno, etc, messages.

Great! It will allow for further reduction in repetition of messages.

> I notice you change past tense to present tense in some cases.

I am reading this that messages SHOULD be in present tense (unless they MUST be in past tense). This is good. Perhaps I will look at current messages and then fix en masse (if there is sth to fix).

> I'm not a friend of geeky abbreviations like "chdir" or "cwd" in
> user-visible messages

I agree but I would also keep in mind that using the name of the function may alllow to parametrize the messages like: Cannot execute "%s" on "%s" - for example. Anyway this is not that important for me. Will wait for other opinions.

>> -                     die_errno("fork failed");
>> +                     die_errno(_("fork failed"));
>> -             die_errno("setsid failed");
>> +             die_errno(_("setsid failed"));

> it is useful to have the function name in  the message. Which rises the
> question:why translate them at all?

Why not eat the cake while having it - one can pass function name in  a
 message like: '"%s" failed'

Regards: al_shopov