Re: Gnome-games and scheme

[Callum McKenzie <callum physics otago ac nz>]

> Ouch!
It is a minor step up from what it previously was, you couldn't
even reverse the order of the rank and suit before :).

I'm going to alter the code as you suggest and give all 56 possible strings
to the translators. (That is 13 cards * 4 suits + 2 jokers)

There is another problem. Once the card name has been generated it
is usually placed in another string. Unfortunately it is just not
feasible to to produce strings for all 3136 possible "move card a
onto card b" style messages. I intend to make the basic card strings
of the form "the queen of hearts" so that at the very least the article
can be given the correct gender. This leaves a string of the form:

"Move %s onto %s."

If the arguments need to be reversed then it is possible to use
"%1$s" or "%2$s" to specify which argument to use, but this requires
the translator to have a detailed knowledge of printf's format
specification.

Does anyone have any ideas how to handle this nicely ? I would imagine
that since the strings to be substituted are just describing different
types of the same thing (playing cards) then it should be possible in
most languages. Does someone have a counter-example ?

There are also several strings of the form:

"Move the ~a off the board"

in principle it is possible to treat these individually, but it still
represents at least another 162 strings.

In each case the ~a is the name of a card preceded by a definite article
so I would imagine that for the single card case it should be possible
to phrase things to allow the full string to be generated. Once again,
examples of why this wouldn't work are welcome.

 - Callum