Re: i18n for yacc backend messages

[Paul Eggert]

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> writes:

> Here's a part of LilyPond's yyttname table
>
>   "MUSIC_FUNCTION_MARKUP_MARKUP_MUSIC", "DRUMS", "DRUMMODE", "'-'", "'+'",
>   "UNARY_MINUS",
>
> I would not want to feed those names to a user.  Eg, in LilyPond's
> input language, DRUMS looks like `\drums'.

OK, but why can't you use the token name '\drums' instead of 'DRUMS'?  E.g.,
something like this:

%token DRUMS "\\drums"

instead of plain "%token DRUMS".

(Sorry, I'm not sure about how many backslashes are needed here.)


>> It's possible that this should be an option, rather than being an
>> unconditional translation.
>
> Translation is always optional, I guess, but I would be perfectly
> happy using an extra #define.

I guess I was thinking about the option of having the tokens
translated for both scanning and printing; but it sounds like Lilypond
doesn't do that so my thoughts were headed in the wrong direction.


> As the syntax error is the most common message that a user will see
> (in fact, that message got me started looking into this) and one of
> the most cryptic ones too, I'd very much like that one translated
> well; ie, in one string.

I'm afraid that the message is cryptic even in English.
Perhaps if we can clarify the English-language message
we can solve the problem for other languages, without
having to translate lots of strings.

The CVS version now is translatable to some extent,
so at least we're better off than before.