[Localization] [IMPORTANT] Getting your formatting strings right

[Korakurider]

Hi all.
On Feb 4, 2008 11:49 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> While going through the translations, I found that some of the
> translators are ignoring the formatting strings in the msgids. Eg,
> they are translating "%d Foo" as "Bar" (where Foo->Bar) in their
> language.
> _Please, please, do not do this._ If you do this, the software will in
> many cases crash while working in your language.
>
> To understand the use of these strings, and to know how to deal with
> them, please do go through
> http://www.bengalinux.org/devel_guide/ch03.html#transguide.poanatomy.specialcases
>
> Thank you,
> Sayamindu

Etoys has similar special placeholder '{ number }'.
For example {1} and {2} are the placeholders here:

  #: Balloon-MMFlash_Import,FlashFileReader>>processHeader
  msgid ""
  "This file's version ({1}) is higher than \n"
  "the currently supported version ({2}). \n"
  "It may contain features that are not supported \n"
  "and it may not display correctly.\n"
  "Do you want to continue?"
 msgstr ""
  "Die Version dieser Datei ({1}) ist neuer \n"
  "als die derzeit unterstützte Version ({2}). \n"
  "Einige Elemente werden möglicherweise \n"
  "nicht korrekt dargestellt.\n"
  "Trotzdem laden?"


I noticed in some language the placeholders are ignored or handled
wrongly, like this:
  msgstr "This file's version (1) is higher than \n"

Squeak doesn't crash by this, but can't show intended information to users.
Please don't do this, do place them appropriately.

Your help will be greatly appreciated.
/Korakurider