Re: setting Language: en_US in the POT file

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Hans-Christoph Steiner asked:
> * Is it valid and recommended to set the Language: header in the .pot file?

The documentation [1] explains the purpose of the 'Language:' header field
in PO files, but is silent regarding POT files.

As far as I can see, msgmerge and msginit do their job properly also when
this field is set to a non-empty value in the POT file.

Therefore, if it helps your workflow, it's reasonable to set in the POT
file as well.

> For f-droid.org, we want to set it to "Language: en_US" so it is clear
> that the source strings are using American spelling.  Some translators
> submit corrections to the source strings, so this information is
> important when considering spelling.

It's the first time I hear about such feedback from translators, because
there's usually no ambiguity between English and American English. But
if it helps you reducing ambiguities or confusion, it sounds like a
reasonable idea. (Better than adding a different field in the header,
that would persist in the PO files and cause more confusion.)

Bruno

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Header-Entry.html