Re: Documentation for Package Maintainers regarding Translations (was: General Questions about Translations and what a package maintainer has to do)

Helge Kreutzmann <[email protected]> Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:33:19 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.internationalization.general,gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hello Marc,
Am Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 05:49:40PM +0100 schrieb Marc Haber:
> On Sat, Mar 22, 2025 at 06:32:54PM +0000, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> > Am Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 09:44:47AM +0100 schrieb Marc Haber:
> > If you have any questions on my changes it is probably best to discuss
> > this on list. Please keep me (or -i18n) in CC, as I'm not subscribed
> > to -devel.
> 
> I think the only matter that needs discussion is whether and when to commit
> updated PO files:
> 
> Me:
> It is currently not clear how to make sure that a package maintainer does
> not forget these updates without creating lots of useless commits with new
> PO files that only differ in line number and date stamp comments.
> 
> You:
> Using no line numbers reduced this problem. Updated time stamps are no worry
> for translators (they seldomly look at them). And they do not care for
> commits - they look at master or similar or on the web pages mentioned above
> and take what they find. So the most important part is to keep this current.
> If you need this for your VCS, you can add code in your build system to
> discard po(t) file updates which only change in the date stamp.
> 
> My questions:
> "Using no line numbers" => invoke msgmerge with --no-location?

Yes.

> "Web pages mentioned above" => I don't see web pages being mentioned. That
> needs a name or a link

I meant the references to the Debian status pages, the link I inserted
further above: https://www.debian.org/international/l10n/

Please reword this to make it more clear.

> "Add code in your build system to discard po(t) that only change in the date
> stamp" => that would mak ethe source package and the tag in the VCS diverge.
> I don't like that at all.

This I don't understand.

At some stage you update the POT files. Then you run a (git) commit,
to place the updated files in your repository.

In manpages-l10n Tobias added code to detect, if only the time stamp
changed. If so, the time stamp is reverted to the previous value, and
a "git commit" is a noop. Then also the po files are left alone.

This "only" saves you a commit in this corner case. 

It is not meant to diverge version, because in the end the po(t) files
in your package should match the po(t) files in the repository.

Greetings

           Helge

-- 
      Dr. Helge Kreutzmann                     [email protected]
           Dipl.-Phys.                   http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php
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