[Localization] Best practices for developers

[Bert Freudenberg]

It's only a problem if there are multiple replacements in the same string. For those, it is indeed recommended to use named substitutions, which also allows reordering and leaving out parts:

_('%(count)d books on %(topic)s') % {'count': 42, 'topic': 'sugar'}

Of course, translators must not accidentally translate the placeholder names. 

In fact, plural forms need special treatment anyway, and Jim did not touch on those in his chapter at all yet.

 >>> from gettext import ngettext
 >>> [ngettext('%(count)d book on %(topic)s', '%(count)d books on %(topic)s', n)
 ...     % {'count': n, 'topic': 'sugar'}
 ...     for n in (0, 1, 2)]
 ['0 books on sugar', '1 book on sugar', '2 books on sugar']

I'm not really sure if plural forms are extracted automatically to the po file though ...

In any case, Translators are advised to *never* remove unnamed substitutions, because, as you pointed out, that can lead to program errors.

- Bert -

On 20.04.2010, at 12:04, Khaled Hosny wrote:
> 
> I highly recommend against using '%s' in translatable strings, as in
> case of several format code in one string, some languages might omit
> one of them which will crash the application. For example:
> 
> "%d books on %s"
> 
> The first three plural forms in Arabic will be like:
> 
> "no books on %s"
> "one book on %s"
> "two books on %s"
> 
> And this will cause a crash.
> 
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:00:58AM -0600, James Simmons wrote:
>> Bert,
>> 
>> I did have a chance to try out using %s in translated strings and it
>> worked fine, so I modified the chapter on Pootle in the book to
>> recommend the technique.  As the book is intended for beginners I
>> think what I put in there is adequate.
>> 
>> James Simmons
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>>> On 08.03.2010, at 15:44, Clytie Siddall wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Reminder for developers: long strings are bad localization practice! Translators avoid them, since they have very little time available (thus you don't get the translation); there's much more room for error and confusion (so you get bad translations); translators can't review the string properly (more errors); and finally, most translation editors don't expect long strings, so they don't handle them well (confused and grumpy translators).
>>> 
>>> Is there as document somewhere for "best practices" in making activities translatable?
>>> 
>>> I found an old discussion on the OLPC wiki:
>>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Python_i18n
>>> 
>>> And this on the Sugar wiki:
>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Translation_Team/i18n_Best_Practices
>>> 
>>> But I'm pretty sure I've seen a more general discussion somewhere ...
>>> 
>>> James is going to add some of these hints to his activity developing book:
>>> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/ActivitiesGuideSugar/GoingInternationalWithPootle
>>> 
>>> So if you feel there is something you need budding activity developers to know, tell him ;)
>>> 
>>> - Bert -
>>> 
>>> 
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> 
> -- 
> Khaled Hosny
> Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
> Free font developer