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capitalization of error messages and option descriptions
From: |
Bruno Haible |
Subject: |
capitalization of error messages and option descriptions |
Date: |
Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:36:36 +0100 |
User-agent: |
KMail/1.9.9 |
> # Error messages should not start with a capital letter
Why should error messages not start with a capital letter?
Often error messages should be translatable, and when they are, the
guidelines from GNU gettext [1] apply:
"Use entire sentences."
And in normal English style, sentences start with a capital letter.
For instance, in GNU gettext I have error messages that consist
of several sentences:
Input files contain messages in different encodings, %s and %s among
others.\n\
Converting the output to UTF-8.\n\
To select a different output encoding, use the --to-code option.\n\
It's normal that these sentences start with a capital letter, no?
Then I also have error messages consisting of a single sentence:
two different charsets \"%s\" and \"%s\" in input file
input file `%s' doesn't contain a header entry with a charset specification
Maybe I should actually change all these error messages to start with a
capital letter, for consistency? Or only those that are entire sentences,
with a subject and a verb?
Somewhat related: What was the point of lowercasing the sentences in the
option descriptions of the usage message of 'bootstrap'?
Bruno
[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Preparing-Strings.html
[2]
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=commitdiff;h=54c0573c2f6200b8b9c88a026c7bc8cfe44e0403
capitalization of error messages and option descriptions,
Bruno Haible <=
- Re: capitalization of error messages and option descriptions, Simon Josefsson, 2011/01/27
- Re: capitalization of error messages and option descriptions, Jim Meyering, 2011/01/27
- Re: capitalization of error messages and option descriptions, Ralf Wildenhues, 2011/01/27
- Re: capitalization of error messages and option descriptions, Karl Berry, 2011/01/28
- Standard error message format (was Re: capitalization of error messages...), Bruce Korb, 2011/01/28
- Re: Standard error message format, Ralf Wildenhues, 2011/01/28
- Re: Standard error message format, Bruce Korb, 2011/01/28
- Re: Standard error message format, Karl Berry, 2011/01/28
- Re: Standard error message format, Ralf Wildenhues, 2011/01/28