Re: feature request: string interpolation

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Yaohan,

Sometimes it's better to look at the problems and see how we can solve them,
rather than starting with a solution and find the appropriate problems
for it.

> I began thinking about the proposal when I saw a typo in a 
> translation, which would have been prevented with automatic substitution.

OK, two techniques can avoid typos in translations:
  - Spell checking,
  - Translation memories.

> For example, an 
> application may have a "Confirm" button, and then refer to it in its 
> manual: "A dialog with a Confirm and Cancel button is shown", "Press the 
> Confirm button to ...". It may need a uniform translation for "Open 
> Source", "port", "username", etc.

OK, consistency when referring to other translations. In this particular
case (referring to the label of a button) simple reuse of
gettext("Confirm"), gettext("Cancel") etc. is possible (i.e. the program
can use sprintf). In the more general case, translation memories is IMO
better at guaranteeing the consistency.

> Thank you for pointing out about "translation memory". I had not looked at it 
> before, but it seems to be able, and maybe dedicated, to solve the problems I 
> was concerned with. However, is it commonly used in smaller projects, where 
> gettext is used?

Some people use compendia as translation memory; kbabel users have
a database access built-in for this purpose.

But I agree with you, more can be done to make translation memory
more used in small projects. Do you want to work on that? It might
even be possible to build up a dictionary of words from a large
existing set of translations.

Bruno