[geeklog-devel] IMPORTANT: More language talk

[Tom Willett]

I imagine that most people had no idea what you were talking about when you 
asked for input on whether ISP's had gettext support.

Suggestion -- make a simple script that tests whether or not a server has 
gettext support enabled.  Put it up on www.geeklog.net with instructions on 
how to install and run it and ask everyone to run in on there server and 
report back the results with their server and/or isp.   It would be helpfull 
to know if all the popular distributions come with it enabled by default.  
My guess here is yes, but you never know.

Tom

On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 11:01:21 -0600 (CST), Tony Bibbs wrote
> After some critial thinking I don't think we can do both gettext AND our 
> current array-based method of doing translations.  Why?
> 
> Well here is the gettext() process in a nutshell.  Let's say you have a 
> bunch of .php pages in some directory.  To get a translated string you:
> 1) get user's locale
> 2) set locale
> 3) where you need a translating string put gettext('some english text');
> 
> Then when you are done with development you do something like:
> 
> 1) run a commandline gettext function on all PHP pages.  This creates a 
> .po file.  IN this file you will have entries like:
> msgid 'some english text'
> msgstr ''
> 
> msgid 'some other text'
> msgstr ''
> 
> etc
> 
> 2) distribute .po file to all translators
> 3) receive translated .po files back 
> 4) convert .po file to .mo file.  .mo is teh file that gettext actually 
> used.
> 
> Now bare with me.  Originally I thought I could support both gettext *and* 
> our current method by simply creating a translator class.  Use would have 
> been similar to this:
> 
> $translator = &translationFactory::getTranslatorClass($method);
> $translator->getText('some english text');
> 
> NOTE: the translationFactory takes a method (gettext or array) and returns 
> the appropriate translator.  Then the method calls are the same for both.
> 
> Will if you are following this, the problem is when you run the xgettext 
> (the command that takes PHP files and makes the .mo file) it won't 
> generate anything...at least I don't think so...because it will be 
> specifically looking for the gettext() function call.
> 
> So, in my opinion we need to really decide on a method and stick with it.  
> I haven't heard any screaming or kicking about ISP's inability to handle 
> this so should we go with it or just stick with what we got? 
> 
> For me it's a tough decision,  gettext is much more elegant and is 
> probably faster and easier on system resources than loading complete 
> language arrays into memory.  However, we do run the risk of alienating 
> the few who's ISP don't support gettext().  
> 
> Honestly, I think I'm OK with using gettext().  That's just point of view 
> now.  What are your thoughts?
> 
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> Tony Bibbs         | "I guess you have to remember that those who don't 
|   
> tony at tonybibbs.com | hunt or fish often see those of us who do as       |
>                    | harmlessly strange and sort of amusing. When you   | 
>                    | think about it, that might be a fair assessment."  | 
>                    | --Unknown                                          |
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
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--
Tom Willett
tomw at pigstye.net