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- <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>54.1. For the Translator</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1" /><link rel="prev" href="nls.html" title="Chapter 54. Native Language Support" /><link rel="next" href="nls-programmer.html" title="54.2. For the Programmer" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">54.1. For the Translator</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="nls.html" title="Chapter 54. Native Language Support">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="nls.html" title="Chapter 54. Native Language Support">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 54. Native Language Support</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 12.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="nls-programmer.html" title="54.2. For the Programmer">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="sect1" id="NLS-TRANSLATOR"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">54.1. For the Translator</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.7.2.3">54.1.1. Requirements</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.7.2.4">54.1.2. Concepts</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.7.2.5">54.1.3. Creating and Maintaining Message Catalogs</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.7.2.6">54.1.4. Editing the PO Files</a></span></dt></dl></div><p>
- <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>
- programs (server and client) can issue their messages in
- your favorite language — if the messages have been translated.
- Creating and maintaining translated message sets needs the help of
- people who speak their own language well and want to contribute to
- the <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> effort. You do not have to be a
- programmer at all
- to do this. This section explains how to help.
- </p><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.7.2.3"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">54.1.1. Requirements</h3></div></div></div><p>
- We won't judge your language skills — this section is about
- software tools. Theoretically, you only need a text editor. But
- this is only in the unlikely event that you do not want to try out
- your translated messages. When you configure your source tree, be
- sure to use the <code class="option">--enable-nls</code> option. This will
- also check for the <span class="application">libintl</span> library and the
- <code class="filename">msgfmt</code> program, which all end users will need
- anyway. To try out your work, follow the applicable portions of
- the installation instructions.
- </p><p>
- If you want to start a new translation effort or want to do a
- message catalog merge (described later), you will need the
- programs <code class="filename">xgettext</code> and
- <code class="filename">msgmerge</code>, respectively, in a GNU-compatible
- implementation. Later, we will try to arrange it so that if you
- use a packaged source distribution, you won't need
- <code class="filename">xgettext</code>. (If working from Git, you will still need
- it.) <span class="application">GNU Gettext 0.10.36</span> or later is currently recommended.
- </p><p>
- Your local gettext implementation should come with its own
- documentation. Some of that is probably duplicated in what
- follows, but for additional details you should look there.
- </p></div><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.7.2.4"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">54.1.2. Concepts</h3></div></div></div><p>
- The pairs of original (English) messages and their (possibly)
- translated equivalents are kept in <em class="firstterm">message
- catalogs</em>, one for each program (although related
- programs can share a message catalog) and for each target
- language. There are two file formats for message catalogs: The
- first is the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">PO</span>”</span> file (for Portable Object), which
- is a plain text file with special syntax that translators edit.
- The second is the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">MO</span>”</span> file (for Machine Object),
- which is a binary file generated from the respective PO file and
- is used while the internationalized program is run. Translators
- do not deal with MO files; in fact hardly anyone does.
- </p><p>
- The extension of the message catalog file is to no surprise either
- <code class="filename">.po</code> or <code class="filename">.mo</code>. The base
- name is either the name of the program it accompanies, or the
- language the file is for, depending on the situation. This is a
- bit confusing. Examples are <code class="filename">psql.po</code> (PO file
- for psql) or <code class="filename">fr.mo</code> (MO file in French).
- </p><p>
- The file format of the PO files is illustrated here:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- # comment
-
- msgid "original string"
- msgstr "translated string"
-
- msgid "more original"
- msgstr "another translated"
- "string can be broken up like this"
-
- ...
- </pre><p>
- The msgid's are extracted from the program source. (They need not
- be, but this is the most common way.) The msgstr lines are
- initially empty and are filled in with useful strings by the
- translator. The strings can contain C-style escape characters and
- can be continued across lines as illustrated. (The next line must
- start at the beginning of the line.)
- </p><p>
- The # character introduces a comment. If whitespace immediately
- follows the # character, then this is a comment maintained by the
- translator. There can also be automatic comments, which have a
- non-whitespace character immediately following the #. These are
- maintained by the various tools that operate on the PO files and
- are intended to aid the translator.
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- #. automatic comment
- #: filename.c:1023
- #, flags, flags
- </pre><p>
- The #. style comments are extracted from the source file where the
- message is used. Possibly the programmer has inserted information
- for the translator, such as about expected alignment. The #:
- comment indicates the exact location(s) where the message is used
- in the source. The translator need not look at the program
- source, but can if there is doubt about the correct
- translation. The #, comments contain flags that describe the
- message in some way. There are currently two flags:
- <code class="literal">fuzzy</code> is set if the message has possibly been
- outdated because of changes in the program source. The translator
- can then verify this and possibly remove the fuzzy flag. Note
- that fuzzy messages are not made available to the end user. The
- other flag is <code class="literal">c-format</code>, which indicates that
- the message is a <code class="function">printf</code>-style format
- template. This means that the translation should also be a format
- string with the same number and type of placeholders. There are
- tools that can verify this, which key off the c-format flag.
- </p></div><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.7.2.5"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">54.1.3. Creating and Maintaining Message Catalogs</h3></div></div></div><p>
- OK, so how does one create a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">blank</span>”</span> message
- catalog? First, go into the directory that contains the program
- whose messages you want to translate. If there is a file
- <code class="filename">nls.mk</code>, then this program has been prepared
- for translation.
- </p><p>
- If there are already some <code class="filename">.po</code> files, then
- someone has already done some translation work. The files are
- named <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em>.po</code>,
- where <em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em> is the
- <a class="ulink" href="https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php" target="_top">
- ISO 639-1 two-letter language code (in lower case)</a>, e.g.,
- <code class="filename">fr.po</code> for French. If there is really a need
- for more than one translation effort per language then the files
- can also be named
- <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em>_<em class="replaceable"><code>region</code></em>.po</code>
- where <em class="replaceable"><code>region</code></em> is the
- <a class="ulink" href="https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html" target="_top">
- ISO 3166-1 two-letter country code (in upper case)</a>,
- e.g.,
- <code class="filename">pt_BR.po</code> for Portuguese in Brazil. If you
- find the language you wanted you can just start working on that
- file.
- </p><p>
- If you need to start a new translation effort, then first run the
- command:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- make init-po
- </pre><p>
- This will create a file
- <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>progname</code></em>.pot</code>.
- (<code class="filename">.pot</code> to distinguish it from PO files that
- are <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">in production</span>”</span>. The <code class="literal">T</code> stands for
- <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">template</span>”</span>.)
- Copy this file to
- <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em>.po</code> and
- edit it. To make it known that the new language is available,
- also edit the file <code class="filename">nls.mk</code> and add the
- language (or language and country) code to the line that looks like:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- AVAIL_LANGUAGES := de fr
- </pre><p>
- (Other languages can appear, of course.)
- </p><p>
- As the underlying program or library changes, messages might be
- changed or added by the programmers. In this case you do not need
- to start from scratch. Instead, run the command:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- make update-po
- </pre><p>
- which will create a new blank message catalog file (the pot file
- you started with) and will merge it with the existing PO files.
- If the merge algorithm is not sure about a particular message it
- marks it <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">fuzzy</span>”</span> as explained above. The new PO file
- is saved with a <code class="filename">.po.new</code> extension.
- </p></div><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.7.2.6"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">54.1.4. Editing the PO Files</h3></div></div></div><p>
- The PO files can be edited with a regular text editor. The
- translator should only change the area between the quotes after
- the msgstr directive, add comments, and alter the fuzzy flag.
- There is (unsurprisingly) a PO mode for Emacs, which I find quite
- useful.
- </p><p>
- The PO files need not be completely filled in. The software will
- automatically fall back to the original string if no translation
- (or an empty translation) is available. It is no problem to
- submit incomplete translations for inclusions in the source tree;
- that gives room for other people to pick up your work. However,
- you are encouraged to give priority to removing fuzzy entries
- after doing a merge. Remember that fuzzy entries will not be
- installed; they only serve as reference for what might be the right
- translation.
- </p><p>
- Here are some things to keep in mind while editing the
- translations:
- </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>
- Make sure that if the original ends with a newline, the
- translation does, too. Similarly for tabs, etc.
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- If the original is a <code class="function">printf</code> format string, the translation
- also needs to be. The translation also needs to have the same
- format specifiers in the same order. Sometimes the natural
- rules of the language make this impossible or at least awkward.
- In that case you can modify the format specifiers like this:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- msgstr "Die Datei %2$s hat %1$u Zeichen."
- </pre><p>
- Then the first placeholder will actually use the second
- argument from the list. The
- <code class="literal"><em class="replaceable"><code>digits</code></em>$</code> needs to
- follow the % immediately, before any other format manipulators.
- (This feature really exists in the <code class="function">printf</code>
- family of functions. You might not have heard of it before because
- there is little use for it outside of message
- internationalization.)
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- If the original string contains a linguistic mistake, report
- that (or fix it yourself in the program source) and translate
- normally. The corrected string can be merged in when the
- program sources have been updated. If the original string
- contains a factual mistake, report that (or fix it yourself)
- and do not translate it. Instead, you can mark the string with
- a comment in the PO file.
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- Maintain the style and tone of the original string.
- Specifically, messages that are not sentences (<code class="literal">cannot
- open file %s</code>) should probably not start with a
- capital letter (if your language distinguishes letter case) or
- end with a period (if your language uses punctuation marks).
- It might help to read <a class="xref" href="error-style-guide.html" title="53.3. Error Message Style Guide">Section 53.3</a>.
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- If you don't know what a message means, or if it is ambiguous,
- ask on the developers' mailing list. Chances are that English
- speaking end users might also not understand it or find it
- ambiguous, so it's best to improve the message.
- </p></li></ul></div><p>
- </p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="nls.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="nls.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="nls-programmer.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 54. Native Language Support </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 54.2. For the Programmer</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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