Re: [bug-gettext] Bug#682580: xgettext: fails to properly replace some placeholders in output .pot (PACKAGE, YEAR, C. HOLDER) (fwd)

[Daiki Ueno]

Francesco Poli <address@hidden> writes:

>> dist-hook:
>>      echo "# Copyright (C) ..." >> $(distdir)/po/hello.pot
>
> This would place the copyright notice at the end of the .pot file,
> wouldn't it? This is not necessarily what one would want to do.

I just gave you an example how it could be done.  It is easy to rewrite
it to put the copyright notice at the top, by using a temporary file.

> What I really fail to understand is: if some placeholders are replaced
> by
>
>   xgettext --copyright-holder="Python Software Foundation" \
>            --package-name=myapplication --package-version=0.1 \
>            --language=python myapplication.py -o myapplication2.pot
>
> why other placeholders are not touched at all?!?

First of all, I would repeat that xgettext prepares a template for
translators, not a real content.  If you want to put the real content
there, you can easily adjust it by using an Automake hook.

With the above example, the replaced placeholders (i.e., COPYRIGHT
HOLDER, PACKAGE, VERSION) are common for all translations derived from
the package source code.

On the other hand, xgettext intentionally doesn't provide a way to touch
some placeholders (YEAR, FULL NAME, LANGUAGE, etc), because it shall be
replaced by translators.  If you run:

  msginit -i myapplication2.pot -o ja.po

then you will get ja.po with those placeholders properly replaced for
translation.

I think this is reasonable.  If you are still not satisfied with the
answer, I'm afraid I doubt I could convince you of that.

Regards,
-- 
Daiki Ueno