Re: msgmerge and the handling of obsolete entries (Re: Updating po files on make dist)

[Bruno Haible <bruno clisp org>]

Bernd Groh wrote:
> could we have msgmerge please NOT 
> change the format of the po-entries, i.e. introducing new line-breaks?

You can avoid that by using the option --width=1000. The tools don't force
a certain normalization on the translators - you can add the width option
to $(MSGMERGE) in po/Makefile.in.in - but some normalization is useful so that
  1. transfer of responsibility from one translator to the next one is
     easier.
  2. the developers can see what has changed (yes, although the developers
     must not modify the translations, sometimes they look what changed),

> Sometimes the line-breaking I do has a particular meaning.

And you cannot express it as a translator comment (a '#' line)?

> Sometimes  I structure entries and group them into logical units, i.e. "foo foo1 
> foo2 " "bar bar1 bar2"

Are these logical units already present in the msgid? Is it a bad msgid?

Frankly I don't see the value of such logical units in the PO file if the end
user later will not see them. Maybe you can achieve your goal with some
punctuation - that would also be visible to the end user?

> Also, if you should happen to forget the space at the end of the line 
> (which, admittedly, I sometimes do -- though I *know* it's essential), 
> and msgmerge is called on the file, I cannot revert it automatically, or 
> at least semi-automatically, i.e. if I do the following:
>
> "foo foo1 foo2" "bar bar1 bar2"
>
> then I can later simply check for entries with no space at the end in 
> the po-file self and fix them (if required)

You don't need to run msgmerge as often as you do. Usually an "msgfmt -c"
is sufficient, and it is repeated until the translator submits or commits his/her
new translations.

Bruno