git-gui po/README: Guide to translators
This short note is to help a translation contributor to help us localizing git-gui message files by covering the basics. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Junio C Hamano
Johannes Schindelin
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Localizing git-gui for your language
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====================================
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This short note is to help you, who reads and writes English and your
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own language, help us getting git-gui localized for more languages. It
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does not try to be a comprehensive manual of GNU gettext, which is the
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i18n framework we use, but tries to help you get started by covering the
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basics and how it is used in this project.
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1. Getting started.
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You would first need to have a working "git". Your distribution may
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have it as "git-core" package (do not get "GNU Interactive Tools" --
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that is a different "git"). You would also need GNU gettext toolchain
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to test the resulting translation out. Although you can work on message
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translation files with a regular text editor, it is a good idea to have
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specialized so-called "po file editors" (e.g. emacs po-mode, KBabel,
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poedit, GTranslator --- any of them would work well). Please install
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them.
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You would then need to clone the git-gui internationalization project
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repository, so that you can work on it:
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$ git clone mob@repo.or.cz:/srv/git/git-gui/git-gui-i18n.git/
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$ cd git-gui-i18n
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$ git checkout --track -b mob origin/mob
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$ git config remote.origin.push mob
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The "git checkout" command creates a 'mob' branch from upstream's
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corresponding branch and makes it your current branch. You will be
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working on this branch.
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The "git config" command records in your repository configuration file
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that you would push "mob" branch to the upstream when you say "git
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push".
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2. Starting a new language.
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In the git-gui-i18n directory is a po/ subdirectory. It has a
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handful files whose names end with ".po". Is there a file that has
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messages in your language?
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If you do not know what your language should be named, you need to find
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it. This currently follows ISO 639-1 two letter codes:
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http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php
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For example, if you are preparing a translation for Afrikaans, the
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language code is "af". If there already is a translation for your
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language, you do not have to perform any step in this section, but keep
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reading, because we are covering the basics.
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If you did not find your language, you would need to start one yourself.
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Copy po/git-gui.pot file to po/af.po (replace "af" with the code for
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your language). Edit the first several lines to match existing *.po
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files to make it clear this is a translation table for git-gui project,
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and you are the primary translator. The result of your editing would
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look something like this:
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# Translation of git-gui to Afrikaans
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# Copyright (C) 2007 Shawn Pearce
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# This file is distributed under the same license as the git-gui package.
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# YOUR NAME <YOUR@E-MAIL.ADDRESS>, 2007.
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#
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#, fuzzy
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msgid ""
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msgstr ""
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"Project-Id-Version: git-gui\n"
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"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: \n"
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"POT-Creation-Date: 2007-07-24 22:19+0300\n"
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"PO-Revision-Date: 2007-07-25 18:00+0900\n"
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"Last-Translator: YOUR NAME <YOUR@E-MAIL.ADDRESS>\n"
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"Language-Team: Afrikaans\n"
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"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
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"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
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"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
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You will find many pairs of a "msgid" line followed by a "msgstr" line.
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These pairs define how messages in git-gui application are translated to
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your language. Your primarily job is to fill in the empty double quote
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pairs on msgstr lines with the translation of the strings on their
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matching msgid lines. A few tips:
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- Control characters, such as newlines, are written in backslash
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sequence similar to string literals in the C programming language.
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When the string given on a msgid line has such a backslash sequence,
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you would typically want to have corresponding ones in the string on
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your msgstr line.
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- Often the messages being translated are format strings given to
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"printf()"-like functions. Make sure "%s", "%d", and "%%" in your
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translated messages match the original.
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When you have to change the order of words, you can add "<number>\$"
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between '%' and the conversion ('s', 'd', etc.) to say "<number>-th
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parameter to the format string is used at this point". For example,
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if the original message is like this:
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"Length is %d, Weight is %d"
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and if for whatever reason your translation needs to say weight first
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and then length, you can say something like:
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"WEIGHT IS %2\$d, LENGTH IS %1\$d"
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The reason you need a backslash before dollar sign is because
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this is a double quoted string in Tcl language, and without
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it the letter introduces a variable interpolation, which you
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do not want here.
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- A long message can be split across multiple lines by ending the
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string with a double quote, and starting another string on the next
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line with another double quote. They will be concatenated in the
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result. For example:
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#: lib/remote_branch_delete.tcl:189
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#, tcl-format
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msgid ""
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"One or more of the merge tests failed because you have not fetched the "
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"necessary commits. Try fetching from %s first."
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msgstr ""
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"HERE YOU WILL WRITE YOUR TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE LONG "
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"MESSAGE IN YOUR LANGUAGE."
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You can test your translation by running "make install", which would
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create po/af.msg file and installs the result, and then running the
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resulting git-gui under your locale:
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$ make install
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$ LANG=af git-gui
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There is a trick to test your translation without first installing, if
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you prefer. First, create this symbolic link in the source tree:
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$ ln -s ../po lib/msgs
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After setting up such a symbolic link, you can:
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$ make
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$ LANG=af ./git-gui.sh
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When you are satisfied with your translation, commit your changes, and
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push it back to the 'mob' branch:
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$ edit po/af.po
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... be sure to update Last-Translator: and
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... PO-Revision-Date: lines.
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$ git add po/af.po
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$ git commit -m 'Started Afrikaans translation.'
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$ git push
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3. Updating your translation.
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There may already be a translation for your language, and you may want
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to contribute an update. This may be because you would want to improve
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the translation of existing messages, or because the git-gui software
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itself was updated and there are new messages that need translation.
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In any case, make sure you are up-to-date before starting your work:
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$ git pull
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In the former case, you will edit po/af.po (again, replace "af" with
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your language code), and after testing and updating the Last-Translator:
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and PO-Revision-Date: lines, "add/commit/push" as in the previous
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section.
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By comparing "POT-Creation-Date:" line in po/git-gui.pot file and
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po/af.po file, you can tell if there are new messages that need to be
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translated. You would need the GNU gettext package to perform this
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step.
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$ msgmerge -U po/af.po po/git-gui.pot
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[NEEDSWORK: who is responsible for updating po/git-gui.pot file by
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running xgettext? IIRC, Christian recommended against running it
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nilly-willy because it can become a source of unnecessary merge
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conflicts. Perhaps we should mention something like "
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The po/git-gui.pot file is updated by the internationalization
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coordinator from time to time. You _could_ update it yourself, but
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translators are discouraged from doing so because we would want all
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language teams to be working off of the same version of git-gui.pot.
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" here?]
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This updates po/af.po (again, replace "af" with your language
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code) so that it contains msgid lines (i.e. the original) that
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your translation did not have before. There are a few things to
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watch out for:
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- The original text in English of an older message you already
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translated might have been changed. You will notice a comment line
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that begins with "#, fuzzy" in front of such a message. msgmerge
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tool made its best effort to match your old translation with the
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message from the updated software, but you may find cases that it
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matched your old translated message to a new msgid and the pairing
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does not make any sense -- you would need to fix them, and then
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remove the "#, fuzzy" line from the message (your fixed translation
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of the message will not be used before you remove the marker).
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- New messages added to the software will have msgstr lines with empty
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strings. You would need to translate them.
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