Re: MO files not optimised enough (esp. en_GB, en_CA, etc)

[Claude Paroz <claude 2xlibre net>]

Le lundi 23 juillet 2007 �2:29 +0100, Simos Xenitellis a �it :
> Hi All,
> It is common in translation teams when a message does not need/require
> translation to simply copy the "msgid" content to "msgstr". For example,
> 
> msgid "GConf"
> msgstr "GConf"
> 
> This is quite common for the locales en_GB, en_CA where the vast
> majority of the messages remain the same.
> 
> The problem arises from the fact that when compiling those PO files into
> MO files (with "msgfmt"), the copied messages are included, contributing
> to an increased size of the file on disk, and also in memory when the
> application is loaded. The issue is, those copied messages could have
> been ommited entirely in the MO file as the running application does not
> need them (it can use the message text that is already included in the
> executable).
> 
> I blogged about this at
> http://blogs.gnome.org/simos/2007/07/23/important-mo-file-optimisation-for-en_-locales-and-partly-others/
> 
> I sent a bug report at the gettext bugs email address. If anyone knows
> of an alternative way to get in contact with the gettext developers,
> please tell me.

You may also try to ping Bruno Haible (bruno at clisp dot org), main
developer of gettext.

Claude