RE: .:: Question about msgcat ::.

[Patrick Frenette]

Hi Bruno,

I will use one of your suggested fix. 
Thanks for the quick reply.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org> 
Sent: October 19, 2022 4:23 PM
To: bug-gettext@gnu.org
Cc: Patrick Frenette <Patrick.Frenette@ezmax.ca>
Subject: Re: .:: Question about msgcat ::.

Patrick Frenette wrote:
> I did the same test with these two files:
> singular.po:
> msgid "child"
> msgstr ""
> 
> plural.po:
> msgid "child"
> msgid_plural "children"
> msgstr[0] ""
> msgstr[1] ""

The documentation was recently updated [1] to clarify that

  msgid "child"

and

  msgid "child"
  msgid_plural "children"

designate the same message.

If the message has msgid_plural, you need to access it through [d[c]]ngettext 
always. That is, it is wrong to use it with the plain 1-argument gettext.
That is because it is the translator and the plural formula which decide which 
of the plural forms to store in msgstr[0].

> #1 Running msgcat singular.po plural.po we have:
> #, fuzzy
> msgid "child"
> msgstr ""
> "#-#-#-#-#  singular.po  #-#-#-#-#\n"
> "#-#-#-#-#  plural.po  #-#-#-#-#\n"
> 
> #2 Running msgcat plural.po singular.po we have:
> #, fuzzy
> msgid "child"
> msgid_plural "children"
> msgstr[0] ""
> "#-#-#-#-#  plural.po  #-#-#-#-#\n"
> "#-#-#-#-#  singular.po  #-#-#-#-#\n"
> msgstr[1] "#-#-#-#-#  plural.po  #-#-#-#-#\n"

This is as desired. The two .po files conflict, and msgcat makes it clear that 
there is a conflict. (There is no error, though, because msgcat is primarily 
made for translators, and it's the translator who is supposed to review and 
handle the conflict.)

> I use Javascript project that return a .json for the translation. Because of 
> this beavior when I use in a template vuejs   {{ $ngettext('child',' 
> children', 4) }} it's always child showing up because when a merge all my 
> files with msgcat, it always take the first msgid.

There are two ways to resolve the conflict:
  - You could use a different msgid in one of the messages.
  - Or you could add an msgctxt to one of the messages. [2]

Bruno

[1] 
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=commitdiff;h=805b7597fe5d59c38584fe670d6daa1484ddbfee
[2] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Contexts.html