Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] gettext.h: add parentheses around N_ expansion

From: Ramsay Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 13:24:21 +0000

On 06/01/15 10:34, Kyle J. McKay wrote:
> The N_ macro is used to mark strings for translation without
> actually translating them.  At runtime the string is expected
> to be passed to the gettext API for translation.
> 
> If two N_ macro invocations appear next to each other with only
> whitespace (or nothing at all) between them, the two separate
> strings will be marked for translation, but the preprocessor
> will then combine the strings into one and at runtime the
> string passed to gettext will not match the strings that were
> translated.
> 
> Avoid this by adding parentheses around the expansion of the
> N_ macro so that instead of ending up with two adjacent strings
> that are then combined by the preprocessor, two adjacent strings
> surrounded by parentheses result instead which causes a compile
> error so the mistake can be quickly found and corrected.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Kyle J. McKay <[email-masked]>
> ---
> This patch is optional, but prevents the problem fixed by 1/2
> from recurring.
> 
>  gettext.h | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/gettext.h b/gettext.h
> index 7671d09d..d11a4139 100644
> --- a/gettext.h
> +++ b/gettext.h
> @@ -63,6 +63,6 @@ const char *Q_(const char *msgid, const char *plu, unsigned long n)
>  }
>  
>  /* Mark msgid for translation but do not translate it. */
> -#define N_(msgid) msgid
> +#define N_(msgid) (msgid)
>  
>  #endif
> 

Hmm, see commit 642f85faa ("i18n: avoid parenthesized string as
array initializer", 07-04-2011), for a counter-point. :-P

ATB,
Ramsay Jones