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jeremybenn |
Notes on GCC's Native Language Support
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By and large, only diagnostic messages have been internationalized.
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Some work remains in other areas; for example, GCC does not yet allow
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non-ASCII letters in identifiers.
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Not all of GCC's diagnostic messages have been internationalized. Programs
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like `genattr' (in fact all gen* programs) are not internationalized, as
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their users are GCC maintainers who typically need to be able to read
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English anyway; internationalizing them would thus entail needless work for
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the human translators. Messages used for debugging, such as used in dumped
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tables, should also not be translated.
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The GCC library should not contain any messages that need
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internationalization, because it operates below the internationalization
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library.
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Unlike some other GNU programs, the GCC sources contain few instances
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of explicit translation calls like _("string"). Instead, the
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diagnostic printing routines automatically translate their arguments.
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For example, GCC source code should not contain calls like `error
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(_("unterminated comment"))'; it should contain calls like `error
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("unterminated comment")' instead, as it is the `error' function's
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responsibility to translate the message before the user sees it.
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By convention, any function parameter in the GCC sources whose name
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ends in `msgid' is expected to be a message requiring translation.
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If the parameter name ends with `gmsgid', it is assumed to be a GCC
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diagnostics format string requiring translation, if it ends with
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`cmsgid', it is assumed to be a format string for `printf' family
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of functions, requiring a translation.
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For example, the `error' function's first parameter is named `gmsgid'.
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GCC's exgettext script uses this convention to determine which
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function parameter strings need to be translated. The exgettext
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script also assumes that any occurrence of `%eMSGID}' on a source
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line, where MSGID does not contain `%' or `}', corresponds to a
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message MSGID that requires translation; this is needed to identify
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diagnostics in GCC spec strings.
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The `G_(GMSGID)' macro defined in intl.h can be used to mark GCC diagnostics
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format strings as requiring translation, but other than that it is a
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no-op at runtime.
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If you modify source files, you'll need at least version 0.14.15 of the
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GNU gettext package to propagate the modifications to the translation
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tables.
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After having built and installed these gettext tools, you have to
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configure GCC with --enable-maintainer-mode to get the master catalog
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rebuilt.
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Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
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are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
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notice and this notice are preserved.
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