[Lynx-dev] Gettext's LANGUAGE and missing English .po

[Chuck Houpt]

I've been using GNU gettext's (0.12.1) LANGUAGE environment variable 
to set language preferences for Lynx 2.8.6r4, and I've run across a 
problem. (LANGUAGE is GNU's multi-lingual extension of the standard 
mono-lingual LANG variable.)

For example, if my preferred languages are (in order) Polish, English 
and French, then I would expect Lynx to use my second choice, 
English, because there is no Polish localization. However, French is 
displayed:

% export LANG=pl_PL
% export LANGUAGE=pl:en:fr
% lynx
< French UI, instead of expected English >

The reason for this is that when Gettext consults LANGUAGE, it 
searches for each locale until one is found. Because there is no pl 
or en locale, Gettext selects the fr. From Gettext's perspective, 
Lynx doesn't have an English UI.

The fix is to create an English .po file. This can be automatically 
generated in the po directory with:

msginit --no-translator -l en

I'd like to suggest that an English .po be included in the Lynx 
distribution. It's also possible that the English .po could be 
generated during a build - would this be preferable?

Thanks - Chuck