Re: [Bug-gnulib] 4-gary-version-etc-full-author-string.patch

[Gary V. Vaughan]

Bruno Haible wrote:
> Jim Meyering wrote:
>
> > How about this (just checked in to coreutils)? 
>
> Quite good, nearly perfect. Only this one
>
>
> > +       /* Note that the following must have one `%s' and one `%%s'. */
> > +#define FMT_TEMPLATE _("Written by %sand %%s.\n")
>
>
> is not easy to translate for the translator.

Agreed.

> I can see three approaches
> for fixing it:
>
> a) Extend the switch up to "case 9:" and "case 10:", and simply document
>    that version_etc works only up to 10 authors.

Only works *well* with up to 10 authors, and after that we fall back to:

    Written by: Bruno Haible, Jim Meyering, Paul Eggert, ..., Gary V. Vaughan.

> b) In Common Lisp, which has format strings with loops, the format string
>    would look like "Written by ~{~^~a, ~} and ~a.". So you could devise
>    an extended_sprintf function that accepts C format with loops.

This would be cool as a gnulib module anyway, whether we use it for 
version_etc or not.  I should add that to snprintfv at some point :->

> c) Let the translator translate 
>          "Written by %s, %s, and %s.\n"
>    and   "Written by %s, %s, %s, and %s.\n"
>    and at runtime interpolate between the two translations. Like this:
>
>         str3 = _("Written by %s, %s, and %s.\n");
>         str4 = _("Written by %s, %s, %s, and %s.\n");
>         common_prefix = compute_common_prefix (str3, str4);
>         str3_suffix = str3 + strlen(common_prefix);
>         str4_suffix = str4 + strlen(common_suffix);
>         if (endswith (str4_suffix, str3_suffix))
>           {
>             one_element_format =
>               xstrndup (str4_suffix, strlen(str4_suffix) - strlen(str3_suffix));
>             final_format_string =
>               concatenate (common_prefix,
>                            (N - 3) times one_element_format,
>                            str3_suffix);
>             ...
>           }
>         else
>           /* Use a fallback, possibly just the English thing.  */

Ick.  Not this one!

> Which one do you prefer? I can code it up.

Just to be a PITA, it would be nice to break the list up on word boundaries 
with isspace(), or even on a (translatable) user specified delimiter to keep 
within 80 columns in the output.  We're gonna run out of room around 4 or 5 
names otherwise...

Cheers,
        Gary.
--
  ())_.  Gary V. Vaughan    gary@(lilith.warpmail.net|gnu.org)
  ( '/   Research Scientist http://www.oranda.demon.co.uk       ,_())____
  / )=   GNU Hacker         http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool  \'      `&
`(_~)_   Tech' Author       http://sources.redhat.com/autobook   =`---d__/