Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make a colon translatable

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 09:32:53 -0700

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <[email-masked]> writes:

>>> --- a/wt-status.c
>>> +++ b/wt-status.c
>>> @@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ static void wt_longstatus_print_other_header(struct wt_status *s,
>>>  					     const char *how)
>>>  {
>>>  	const char *c = color(WT_STATUS_HEADER, s);
>>> -	status_printf_ln(s, c, "%s:", what);
>>> +	status_printf_ln(s, c, "%s", what);
>>
>> I.e. this one is better handled by
>>
>> 	status_printf_ln(s, c, _("%s:"), what);
>>
>> as _(...) in C-locale is original-language centric, where we want
>> the label to be <phrase> immediately followed by a colon.  And that
>> allows French translation to have nbsp before the colon.
>
> In this case I think the change as suggested is better, translators get
> zero context from "%s:", whereas "Untracked files:" being status output
> is immediately obvious.

It is unclear if you read the original (and discussion so far).

I understand that Julien wants to turn "%s:" to have nonbreaking
whitespace before the colon.  It does not matter what label we are
using (it can be "Ignored files").  I took it that the patch is
addressing "git status" output but the general thrust is in Julien's
translation, all "label-string followed by colon" should become "the
string followed by nonbreaking whitespace followed by colon".

Moving the colon to the label string is backwards, isn't it?  If the
presentation form accepted in the C-locale, i.e. "%s:", needs to be
localized in Julien's translation to "%s :", shouldn't the "%s:"
that defines the presentation be what is marked for translation?

> His commit message also doesn't mention it, but for existing "headings"
> we already do this, e.g.:
>
>     status_printf_ln(s, c, _("Changes to be committed:"));
>     status_printf_ln(s, c, _("Changes not staged for commit:"));

That's another arugment to translate _("%s:") once for the language,
I would think.