i18n problems in texinfo (again)

[Christian Rose]

These are the issues I encountered translating the latest pot file,
texinfo-4.0g.pot. Some issues have been resolved since my last mail,
some are still there. Below are the ones that are still there.


BUG 1
-----
info/indices.c:382

This is broken:

  info_error (_("No %sindex entries containing \"%s\"."),
              index_offset > 0 ? _("more ") : "", index_search);

Please don't use this type of construct, use two complete sentences
instead and an outer if statement.


BUG 2
-----
info/infodoc.c:128

This is broken:

  N_("  %-10s  Search for a specified string in the index entries of this 
Info\n"),
  N_("              file, and select the node referenced by the first entry 
found.\n"),

Please don't split a single sentence like this in multiple messages,
use one single message instead. Sentences have to be kept together when
translating, you can't split a sentence into parts and mark them for
separate translation and expect it to work with word ordering,
grammar, and everything else in other languages. Splitting sentences
just makes it harder for translators when having not just to translate,
but also puzzle the pieces of the sentence together again so that it
makes some sense, in order to be able to translate in the first place.


BUG 3
-----
info/infodoc.c:132

This is broken:

  N_("  %-10s  Search forward through this Info file for a specified 
string,\n"),
  N_("              and select the node in which the next occurrence is 
found.\n"),

Please don't split a single sentence like this in multiple messages,
use one single message instead. Sentences have to be kept together when
translating, you can't split a sentence into parts and mark them for
separate translation and expect it to work with word ordering,
grammar, and everything else in other languages. Splitting sentences
just makes it harder for translators when having not just to translate,
but also puzzle the pieces of the sentence together again so that it
makes some sense, in order to be able to translate in the first place.


BUG 4
-----
info/infodoc.c:134

This is broken:

  N_("  %-10s  Search backward in this Info file for a specified string,\n"),
  N_("              and select the node in which the next occurrence is 
found.\n"),

Please don't split a single sentence like this in multiple messages,
use one single message instead. Sentences have to be kept together when
translating, you can't split a sentence into parts and mark them for
separate translation and expect it to work with word ordering,
grammar, and everything else in other languages. Splitting sentences
just makes it harder for translators when having not just to translate,
but also puzzle the pieces of the sentence together again so that it
makes some sense, in order to be able to translate in the first place.


BUG 5
-----
info/session.c:3662

This is broken:

  sprintf (prompt, _("%s%sfor string [%s]: "),
           direction < 0 ? _("Search backward") : _("Search"),
           case_sensitive ? _(" case-sensitively ") : _(" "),
           search_string);

Never split a sentence like this, use multiple complete messages
instead.
If you split a sentence like this, you actually mark them for seperate
translation, but they shouldn't be translated seperately, since they
belong to the same sentence! All grammar/wording/sentence rules affect
how the words interact in the sentence, and you cannot take them out of
their sentence context and expect the same grammar to be valid. If you ,
you assume things about languages that are hardly true for any language
but the original one.
Make this several, complete messages, and move the logic out of the
messages themselves. Yes, this will result in many more messages, but
those will be translatable, while the current design isn't.


BUG 6
-----
makeinfo/cmds.c:503

The translator should not need to translate the month names -- it is all
already present in libc and can be used with nl_langinfo(), strftime()
and friends. Forcing the translator to translate this is just redundant.



Christian