Re: gettext, plural form and translation

Tom Lane wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
>> Sergey Burladyan escribió:
>>> maybe build farm can help to test it ?
> 
>> Yes, I think we should implement it and see what happens with the
>> buildfarm.  If we stand still and do nothing, we won't be any wiser.
> 
> The buildfarm is irrelevant to the fact that some platforms don't
> have ngettext.
> 
> If the patch is designed to use ngettext where available, and to be no
> worse than what we have where it isn't, then we could consider it.

It depends also on what we *want* to target.  I originally omitted the 
plural support because it was a GNU extension, and I wanted to support 
"standard" gettext implementations as well.  (There was also a licensing 
consideration.)  Solaris is the "original" implementation of this API, 
so it can serve as a reference point.

But it is open to debate whether that decision is more useful than the 
tradeoff it imposes.

What I read now, however, is that Solaris 9 introduced the 
GNU-compatible ngettext extension, which changes the above argument 
considerably.

Given the current information available to me, I would also be satisfied 
to require ngettext() and reject NLS support on platforms that don't 
provide it.