Re: Translatable Ordinal Numbers

[F Wolff <friedel translate org za>]

Op Saterdag 2008-03-01 skryf Sven Herzberg:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm currently working on a calendar-like application and want to display
> a string for the day like "1st", "2nd", "3rd", "4th". The string has to
> stand alone, so please don't try to convince me about using
> strftime(3). 
> 
> Now my question: is there a properly usable way of doing this? (I think
> of a solution like nettext(3).)
> 
> I think I'll go on like this (if no other appropriate solution pops up):
> 1. Use a list of strings for the beginning (this is really not much of
> an issue as I only have to care about ordinal numbers from 1st to 31st).
> 2. (Once I have enough time:) Make up an internal function like
> ngettext() and use that.
> 3. If everything works out: try to push it into gettext.
> 
> Regards,
>   Sven

Hi Sven

I don't know what nettext is (no man page for that on my system), but I
recall that some robot for editing Wikipedia needed this information
some time ago, so you might be able to search for that. If I remember
correctly, the patterns for Dutch and Afrikaans was quite complex, and
for your purposes, I think your option 1 is mostly the only way to go.
If we need to do hundreds or thousands of ordinals, there is a pattern,
but it only emerges at that scale, sortof :-)

Keep well
Friedel