Re: gettext and variable parsing

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 12:16:12 +0200, Christophe Chisogne 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Ramil Sagum wrote:
>> echo _("Displaying records from $from to $to of $total");
>
> Try with
> 	printf( _("Displaying records from %d to %d of %d"),
> 		$from, $to, $total );
>
> It seems you must quote the strings with ".." for gettext to work.
> For all "variable content" to be translated, you have to use
> "format strings" (1st argument of printf, sprintf...).
> By example, "%d" means to write the var as an integer.
>
> With printf, sprintf etc gettext translate a static string
> 	"Displaying records from %d to %d of %d"
> It can translate it to, say,
> 	"Affichage des enregistrements de %d à %d parmi %d".
> Next, printf receive this format string, as if no i18n
> has occured before.

One problem which might occur using printf/sprintf and gettext is that you 
have several arguments to printf, and the translated string uses them i a 
different order than specified in the code.

Example:

printf(_("There are %d monkeys in the tree, %d are red and %d are 
green\n"), $monkeys, $red, $green);

Consider that translated into the following (both strings in english for 
simplicity):

printf(_("%d green and %d red monkeys in a tree makes a total of %d 
monkeys\n", $monkeys, $red, $green);

This will generate the wrong string.
In stead use:

printf(_("%3\$d green and %2\$d red monkeys in a tree makes a total of 
%1\$d monkeys\n", $monkeys, $red, $green);

This will use the arguments in the correct order.

In .po format:

msgid "There are %d monkeys in the tree, %d are red and %d are green\n"
msgstr "%3\$d green and %2\$d red monkeys in a tree makes a total of %1\$d 
monkeys\n"

Hope this will be usefull to someone!

-- 
mvh
BjÞrn Tore Hagen
Programmer

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