Re: gettext

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, May 19, 2007 at 07:30:26PM +0200, Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:
> On Saturday 19 May 2007 12:21, Robert Millan wrote:
> > Are there any plans to implement gettext ?  If not, I'd like to send a
> > proposal.
> 
> Only a plan. Nothing has been done until now. I think we have three main 
> issues:
> 
> - how to prevent calling getttext before loading it (note: I don't want to 
> put 
> gettext in the kernel)

We could put a gettext() stub in the kernel, then have gettext.mod replace it.

> - what should be translated (how about error messages?)

I would suggest starting with the userland part.  Currently, update-grub (well,
10_linux) already generates a translatable string, which ends up showing in the
menu.  This can be l10n'ed before implementing the gettext module, and it would
get it started by implementing the build system part of things (I assume both
userland and kernel are going to use the same message catalogs).

> - what should be done if a terminal is not capable of displaying most 
> characters (falling back to original messages? just displaying garbage?)

I think update-grub should detect wether the system locale is using utf-8,
and if not, set it to C.  It can also detect whether gfxterm is being
enabled.

For users writing grub.cfg by hand, it's their responsability to enable
gfxterm/whatever if they put utf-8 chars in it.

-- 
Robert Millan

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