Re: [xml] error message in other language

[Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com>]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 08:28:54AM +0200, Tim Van Holder wrote:
> I'd suggest filing a bugzilla entry for i18n of libxml; there's no good
> reason why it shouldn't be gettextized.

  There is one, I don't want to depend on gettext for example on
Windows I don't force the dependancy, and on other "exotic" like
embedded system I don't want anything to get in the way. libxml2
only dependancies are a C compiler and a decent libc subset, anything
else must be completely optional.

> Of course, once that's done, someone will still have to do the German
> translations - but translating a message catalog is much much easier
> than trying to parse the English error messages and replacing them with
> German ones.
> 
> As for Daniel's reservations (cfr.
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2003-April/msg00048.html):
> - if current messages are not intended for users, then they should not
>   be the primary error information; instead, error codes would have to
>   be used, with a default error handler that emits a not-user-oriented
>   message based on that.  Requiring callers to parse textual errors in
>   order to provide meaningful messages to the user is not a great
>   design (and that is what I take it you mean when you speak of an
>   "interpretation layer").  Also, there is something to be said for
>   standardized error messages - why would it be a good idea for every
>   program to have its own wording for an error when it's the same
>   libxml2 error at the basis?
> - Various localization mechanisms?  Add support for gettext, and you
>   cover a wide range of platforms; those without gettext support simply
>   get English messages as before.  This approach is used by many, many
>   open source programs (including many parts of Gome).
> - A lot of work?  I'd have to dig through the code, but as long as
>   messages are created/emitted using *printf-style functions, it would
>   be very little work to instrument existing code for gettext use (just
>   add _() around translatable strings, and define _(message) to expand
>   to dgettext("libxml2", message).  xgettext will then easily be able
>   to extract the message catalog.
> 
> => so I see it as a relatively small amount of work, with the benefit
>    of standardized and fully localized error messages
> 
> *runs away before Daniel can grab me and force me to provide a patch*

  And a patch which doesn't get in the way for those without gettext()

Daniel

-- 
Daniel Veillard      | Red Hat http://redhat.com/
veillard redhat com  | libxml GNOME XML XSLT toolkit  http://xmlsoft.org/
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