Re: problem with plural-forms

Tom Lane wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
> > I think it should use the %2$s style specifier in that case.  This
> > should work:
> 
> > printf (ngettext ("One file removed, containing %2$lu bytes",
> >                   "%d files removed, containing %lu bytes", n),
> >         n, total_bytes);
> 
> How's that gonna work?  In the n=1 case, printf would have no idea about
> the type/size of the argument it would need to skip over.

Hmm, I admit I have no idea how it works ... but now that I think about
it, you are right that at least I only use it with the whole argument
array, just in a different order.

> I think maybe you could make it work like this:
> 
>        printf (ngettext ("One file removed, containing %1$lu bytes",
>                          "%2$d files removed, containing %1$lu bytes", n),
>                total_bytes, n);
> 
> but *for sure* I don't want us playing such games without a robust
> compile-time check on both variants of the ngettext string.  I'm
> not real sure it's a good idea at all, because of the potential for
> confusing translators.  Notice also that we have subtly embedded the
> preferred English phrase ordering here: if someone wants to pull the
> same type of trick in a language where the bytecount ought to come
> first, he's just plain out of luck.

Agreed on both counts.  We have enough trouble finding translators as it
is; I don't want to know what would happen if we were to confuse them
with this :-)

I find it strange that this topic has not been fully hashed out in the
GNU gettext documentation.  Maybe we should talk to them.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
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