Re: [PATCH] advice: omit trailing whitespace

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 31, 2024, 22:20 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqo7auf3h5.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <3e35b731-333e-4b46-9c0c-089b5c47fe99@gmail.com>

Rubén Justo <rjusto@gmail.com> writes:

Show 24 quoted lines

>> > > and move the "hint" literal to the args, to ease the translation work:
>> > > -               fprintf(stderr, _("%shint:%s%.*s%s\n"),
>> > > +               fprintf(stderr, "%s%s:%s%.*s%s\n",
>> > >                         advise_get_color(ADVICE_COLOR_HINT),
>> > > +                       _("hint"),
>> > >                         (np == cp) ? "" : " ",
>> > >                         (int)(np - cp), cp,
>> > >                         advise_get_color(ADVICE_COLOR_RESET));
>> > 
>> > It is not guaranteed that any and all languages want to use a colon
>> > immediately after translation of "hint"; the current message string
>> > with or without my patch allows translators adjust that part to the
>> > target language, but your version will force them to always use only
>> > a colon there.  Is that an improvement?  I somehow do not think so.
>> 
>> I was just thinking if leaving the format open to the translation is a
>> sane option.  Maybe we can move the colon to the literal in the args,
>> too.
>
> Just for the record, zh_CN (Chinese) and zh_TW (Traditional Chinese)
> do not use ':' on its translation, but '：'
>
> So, if we go the way I proposed we'll need to move the ':' too.  I
> still think it's an improvement.  But, optional to this series.

It is making it even worse.

Giving larger unit to work with to translators is usually a better for i18n than chopping a single logical message into multiple pieces and paste them together in the code, as your untranslated format-string (e.g., "%s%s:%s%.*s%s\n" we see above) will force the word order in the final output.

I think the patch at the beginning of the thread is more than serviceable, but if we wanted to improve on it, we should go in the opposite direction, e.g.

	if (np == cp)
		fprintf(stderr, _("%shint:%s\n"),
			advise_get_color(ADVICE_COLOR_HINT),
			advise_get_color(ADVICE_COLOR_RESET));
	else
		fprintf(stderr, _("%shint: %.*s%s\n"),
			advise_get_color(ADVICE_COLOR_HINT),
			(int)(np - cp), cp,
			advise_get_color(ADVICE_COLOR_RESET));

to give translators flexibility to choose what kind of space to use (including "none") after "hint:".

I am not going to do that, though, until/unless somebody complains and says "there is no inter-word spaces and it is more customary not to have a space after the translation of 'hint:' in my language".