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6<TITLE>GNU gettext utilities - Preparing Program Sources</TITLE>
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15
16
17<H1><A NAME="SEC13" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC13">Preparing Program Sources</A></H1>
18
19<P>
20For the programmer, changes to the C source code fall into three
21categories. First, you have to make the localization functions
22known to all modules needing message translation. Second, you should
23properly trigger the operation of GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE> when the program
24initializes, usually from the <CODE>main</CODE> function. Last, you should
25identify and especially mark all constant strings in your program
26needing translation.
27
28</P>
29<P>
30Presuming that your set of programs, or package, has been adjusted
31so all needed GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE> files are available, and your
32<TT>`Makefile'</TT> files are adjusted (see section <A HREF="gettext_10.html#SEC67">The Maintainer's View</A>), each C module
33having translated C strings should contain the line:
34
35</P>
36
37<PRE>
38#include &#60;libintl.h&#62;
39</PRE>
40
41<P>
42The remaining changes to your C sources are discussed in the further
43sections of this chapter.
44
45</P>
46
47
48
49<H2><A NAME="SEC14" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC14">Triggering <CODE>gettext</CODE> Operations</A></H2>
50
51<P>
52The initialization of locale data should be done with more or less
53the same code in every program, as demonstrated below:
54
55</P>
56
57<PRE>
58int
59main (argc, argv)
60 int argc;
61 char argv;
62{
63 ...
64 setlocale (LC_ALL, "");
65 bindtextdomain (PACKAGE, LOCALEDIR);
66 textdomain (PACKAGE);
67 ...
68}
69</PRE>
70
71<P>
72<VAR>PACKAGE</VAR> and <VAR>LOCALEDIR</VAR> should be provided either by
73<TT>`config.h'</TT> or by the Makefile. For now consult the <CODE>gettext</CODE>
74sources for more information.
75
76</P>
77<P>
78The use of <CODE>LC_ALL</CODE> might not be appropriate for you.
79<CODE>LC_ALL</CODE> includes all locale categories and especially
80<CODE>LC_CTYPE</CODE>. This later category is responsible for determining
81character classes with the <CODE>isalnum</CODE> etc. functions from
82<TT>`ctype.h'</TT> which could especially for programs, which process some
83kind of input language, be wrong. For example this would mean that a
84source code using the @,{c} (c-cedilla character) is runnable in
85France but not in the U.S.
86
87</P>
88<P>
89Some systems also have problems with parsing number using the
90<CODE>scanf</CODE> functions if an other but the <CODE>LC_ALL</CODE> locale is used.
91The standards say that additional formats but the one known in the
92<CODE>"C"</CODE> locale might be recognized. But some systems seem to reject
93numbers in the <CODE>"C"</CODE> locale format. In some situation, it might
94also be a problem with the notation itself which makes it impossible to
95recognize whether the number is in the <CODE>"C"</CODE> locale or the local
96format. This can happen if thousands separator characters are used.
97Some locales define this character accordfing to the national
98conventions to <CODE>'.'</CODE> which is the same character used in the
99<CODE>"C"</CODE> locale to denote the decimal point.
100
101</P>
102<P>
103So it is sometimes necessary to replace the <CODE>LC_ALL</CODE> line in the
104code above by a sequence of <CODE>setlocale</CODE> lines
105
106</P>
107
108<PRE>
109{
110 ...
111 setlocale (LC_TIME, "");
112 setlocale (LC_MESSAGES, "");
113 ...
114}
115</PRE>
116
117<P>
118or to switch for and back to the character class in question. On all
119POSIX conformant systems the locale categories <CODE>LC_CTYPE</CODE>,
120<CODE>LC_COLLATE</CODE>, <CODE>LC_MONETARY</CODE>, <CODE>LC_NUMERIC</CODE>, and
121<CODE>LC_TIME</CODE> are available. On some modern systems there is also a
122locale <CODE>LC_MESSAGES</CODE> which is called on some old, XPG2 compliant
123systems <CODE>LC_RESPONSES</CODE>.
124
125</P>
126
127
128<H2><A NAME="SEC15" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC15">How Marks Appears in Sources</A></H2>
129
130<P>
131All strings requiring translation should be marked in the C sources. Marking
132is done in such a way that each translatable string appears to be
133the sole argument of some function or preprocessor macro. There are
134only a few such possible functions or macros meant for translation,
135and their names are said to be marking keywords. The marking is
136attached to strings themselves, rather than to what we do with them.
137This approach has more uses. A blatant example is an error message
138produced by formatting. The format string needs translation, as
139well as some strings inserted through some <SAMP>`%s'</SAMP> specification
140in the format, while the result from <CODE>sprintf</CODE> may have so many
141different instances that it is impractical to list them all in some
142<SAMP>`error_string_out()'</SAMP> routine, say.
143
144</P>
145<P>
146This marking operation has two goals. The first goal of marking
147is for triggering the retrieval of the translation, at run time.
148The keyword are possibly resolved into a routine able to dynamically
149return the proper translation, as far as possible or wanted, for the
150argument string. Most localizable strings are found in executable
151positions, that is, attached to variables or given as parameters to
152functions. But this is not universal usage, and some translatable
153strings appear in structured initializations. See section <A HREF="gettext_3.html#SEC18">Special Cases of Translatable Strings</A>.
154
155</P>
156<P>
157The second goal of the marking operation is to help <CODE>xgettext</CODE>
158at properly extracting all translatable strings when it scans a set
159of program sources and produces PO file templates.
160
161</P>
162<P>
163The canonical keyword for marking translatable strings is
164<SAMP>`gettext'</SAMP>, it gave its name to the whole GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE>
165package. For packages making only light use of the <SAMP>`gettext'</SAMP>
166keyword, macro or function, it is easily used <EM>as is</EM>. However,
167for packages using the <CODE>gettext</CODE> interface more heavily, it
168is usually more convenient to give the main keyword a shorter, less
169obtrusive name. Indeed, the keyword might appear on a lot of strings
170all over the package, and programmers usually do not want nor need
171their program sources to remind them forcefully, all the time, that they
172are internationalized. Further, a long keyword has the disadvantage
173of using more horizontal space, forcing more indentation work on
174sources for those trying to keep them within 79 or 80 columns.
175
176</P>
177<P>
178Many packages use <SAMP>`_'</SAMP> (a simple underline) as a keyword,
179and write <SAMP>`_("Translatable string")'</SAMP> instead of <SAMP>`gettext
180("Translatable string")'</SAMP>. Further, the coding rule, from GNU standards,
181wanting that there is a space between the keyword and the opening
182parenthesis is relaxed, in practice, for this particular usage.
183So, the textual overhead per translatable string is reduced to
184only three characters: the underline and the two parentheses.
185However, even if GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE> uses this convention internally,
186it does not offer it officially. The real, genuine keyword is truly
187<SAMP>`gettext'</SAMP> indeed. It is fairly easy for those wanting to use
188<SAMP>`_'</SAMP> instead of <SAMP>`gettext'</SAMP> to declare:
189
190</P>
191
192<PRE>
193#include &#60;libintl.h&#62;
194#define _(String) gettext (String)
195</PRE>
196
197<P>
198instead of merely using <SAMP>`#include &#60;libintl.h&#62;'</SAMP>.
199
200</P>
201<P>
202Later on, the maintenance is relatively easy. If, as a programmer,
203you add or modify a string, you will have to ask yourself if the
204new or altered string requires translation, and include it within
205<SAMP>`_()'</SAMP> if you think it should be translated. <SAMP>`"%s: %d"'</SAMP> is
206an example of string <EM>not</EM> requiring translation!
207
208</P>
209
210
211<H2><A NAME="SEC16" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC16">Marking Translatable Strings</A></H2>
212
213<P>
214In PO mode, one set of features is meant more for the programmer than
215for the translator, and allows him to interactively mark which strings,
216in a set of program sources, are translatable, and which are not.
217Even if it is a fairly easy job for a programmer to find and mark
218such strings by other means, using any editor of his choice, PO mode
219makes this work more comfortable. Further, this gives translators
220who feel a little like programmers, or programmers who feel a little
221like translators, a tool letting them work at marking translatable
222strings in the program sources, while simultaneously producing a set of
223translation in some language, for the package being internationalized.
224
225</P>
226<P>
227The set of program sources, targetted by the PO mode commands describe
228here, should have an Emacs tags table constructed for your project,
229prior to using these PO file commands. This is easy to do. In any
230shell window, change the directory to the root of your project, then
231execute a command resembling:
232
233</P>
234
235<PRE>
236etags src/*.[hc] lib/*.[hc]
237</PRE>
238
239<P>
240presuming here you want to process all <TT>`.h'</TT> and <TT>`.c'</TT> files
241from the <TT>`src/'</TT> and <TT>`lib/'</TT> directories. This command will
242explore all said files and create a <TT>`TAGS'</TT> file in your root
243directory, somewhat summarizing the contents using a special file
244format Emacs can understand.
245
246</P>
247<P>
248For packages following the GNU coding standards, there is
249a make goal <CODE>tags</CODE> or <CODE>TAGS</CODE> which construct the tag files in
250all directories and for all files containing source code.
251
252</P>
253<P>
254Once your <TT>`TAGS'</TT> file is ready, the following commands assist
255the programmer at marking translatable strings in his set of sources.
256But these commands are necessarily driven from within a PO file
257window, and it is likely that you do not even have such a PO file yet.
258This is not a problem at all, as you may safely open a new, empty PO
259file, mainly for using these commands. This empty PO file will slowly
260fill in while you mark strings as translatable in your program sources.
261
262</P>
263<DL COMPACT>
264
265<DT><KBD>,</KBD>
266<DD>
267Search through program sources for a string which looks like a
268candidate for translation.
269
270<DT><KBD>M-,</KBD>
271<DD>
272Mark the last string found with <SAMP>`_()'</SAMP>.
273
274<DT><KBD>M-.</KBD>
275<DD>
276Mark the last string found with a keyword taken from a set of possible
277keywords. This command with a prefix allows some management of these
278keywords.
279
280</DL>
281
282<P>
283The <KBD>,</KBD> (<CODE>po-tags-search</CODE>) command search for the next
284occurrence of a string which looks like a possible candidate for
285translation, and displays the program source in another Emacs window,
286positioned in such a way that the string is near the top of this other
287window. If the string is too big to fit whole in this window, it is
288positioned so only its end is shown. In any case, the cursor
289is left in the PO file window. If the shown string would be better
290presented differently in different native languages, you may mark it
291using <KBD>M-,</KBD> or <KBD>M-.</KBD>. Otherwise, you might rather ignore it
292and skip to the next string by merely repeating the <KBD>,</KBD> command.
293
294</P>
295<P>
296A string is a good candidate for translation if it contains a sequence
297of three or more letters. A string containing at most two letters in
298a row will be considered as a candidate if it has more letters than
299non-letters. The command disregards strings containing no letters,
300or isolated letters only. It also disregards strings within comments,
301or strings already marked with some keyword PO mode knows (see below).
302
303</P>
304<P>
305If you have never told Emacs about some <TT>`TAGS'</TT> file to use, the
306command will request that you specify one from the minibuffer, the
307first time you use the command. You may later change your <TT>`TAGS'</TT>
308file by using the regular Emacs command <KBD>M-x visit-tags-table</KBD>,
309which will ask you to name the precise <TT>`TAGS'</TT> file you want
310to use. See section `Tag Tables' in <CITE>The Emacs Editor</CITE>.
311
312</P>
313<P>
314Each time you use the <KBD>,</KBD> command, the search resumes from where it was
315left by the previous search, and goes through all program sources,
316obeying the <TT>`TAGS'</TT> file, until all sources have been processed.
317However, by giving a prefix argument to the command (<KBD>C-u
318,)</KBD>, you may request that the search be restarted all over again
319from the first program source; but in this case, strings that you
320recently marked as translatable will be automatically skipped.
321
322</P>
323<P>
324Using this <KBD>,</KBD> command does not prevent using of other regular
325Emacs tags commands. For example, regular <CODE>tags-search</CODE> or
326<CODE>tags-query-replace</CODE> commands may be used without disrupting the
327independent <KBD>,</KBD> search sequence. However, as implemented, the
328<EM>initial</EM> <KBD>,</KBD> command (or the <KBD>,</KBD> command is used with a
329prefix) might also reinitialize the regular Emacs tags searching to the
330first tags file, this reinitialization might be considered spurious.
331
332</P>
333<P>
334The <KBD>M-,</KBD> (<CODE>po-mark-translatable</CODE>) command will mark the
335recently found string with the <SAMP>`_'</SAMP> keyword. The <KBD>M-.</KBD>
336(<CODE>po-select-mark-and-mark</CODE>) command will request that you type
337one keyword from the minibuffer and use that keyword for marking
338the string. Both commands will automatically create a new PO file
339untranslated entry for the string being marked, and make it the
340current entry (making it easy for you to immediately proceed to its
341translation, if you feel like doing it right away). It is possible
342that the modifications made to the program source by <KBD>M-,</KBD> or
343<KBD>M-.</KBD> render some source line longer than 80 columns, forcing you
344to break and re-indent this line differently. You may use the <KBD>O</KBD>
345command from PO mode, or any other window changing command from
346GNU Emacs, to break out into the program source window, and do any
347needed adjustments. You will have to use some regular Emacs command
348to return the cursor to the PO file window, if you want command
349<KBD>,</KBD> for the next string, say.
350
351</P>
352<P>
353The <KBD>M-.</KBD> command has a few built-in speedups, so you do not
354have to explicitly type all keywords all the time. The first such
355speedup is that you are presented with a <EM>preferred</EM> keyword,
356which you may accept by merely typing <KBD><KBD>RET</KBD></KBD> at the prompt.
357The second speedup is that you may type any non-ambiguous prefix of the
358keyword you really mean, and the command will complete it automatically
359for you. This also means that PO mode has to <EM>know</EM> all
360your possible keywords, and that it will not accept mistyped keywords.
361
362</P>
363<P>
364If you reply <KBD>?</KBD> to the keyword request, the command gives a
365list of all known keywords, from which you may choose. When the
366command is prefixed by an argument (<KBD>C-u M-.</KBD>), it inhibits
367updating any program source or PO file buffer, and does some simple
368keyword management instead. In this case, the command asks for a
369keyword, written in full, which becomes a new allowed keyword for
370later <KBD>M-.</KBD> commands. Moreover, this new keyword automatically
371becomes the <EM>preferred</EM> keyword for later commands. By typing
372an already known keyword in response to <KBD>C-u M-.</KBD>, one merely
373changes the <EM>preferred</EM> keyword and does nothing more.
374
375</P>
376<P>
377All keywords known for <KBD>M-.</KBD> are recognized by the <KBD>,</KBD> command
378when scanning for strings, and strings already marked by any of those
379known keywords are automatically skipped. If many PO files are opened
380simultaneously, each one has its own independent set of known keywords.
381There is no provision in PO mode, currently, for deleting a known
382keyword, you have to quit the file (maybe using <KBD>q</KBD>) and reopen
383it afresh. When a PO file is newly brought up in an Emacs window, only
384<SAMP>`gettext'</SAMP> and <SAMP>`_'</SAMP> are known as keywords, and <SAMP>`gettext'</SAMP>
385is preferred for the <KBD>M-.</KBD> command. In fact, this is not useful to
386prefer <SAMP>`_'</SAMP>, as this one is already built in the <KBD>M-,</KBD> command.
387
388</P>
389
390
391<H2><A NAME="SEC17" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC17">Special Comments preceding Keywords</A></H2>
392
393<P>
394In C programs strings are often used within calls of functions from the
395<CODE>printf</CODE> family. The special thing about these format strings is
396that they can contain format specifiers introduced with <KBD>%</KBD>. Assume
397we have the code
398
399</P>
400
401<PRE>
402printf (gettext ("String `%s' has %d characters\n"), s, strlen (s));
403</PRE>
404
405<P>
406A possible German translation for the above string might be:
407
408</P>
409
410<PRE>
411"%d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette `%s'"
412</PRE>
413
414<P>
415A C programmer, even if he cannot speak German, will recognize that
416there is something wrong here. The order of the two format specifiers
417is changed but of course the arguments in the <CODE>printf</CODE> don't have.
418This will most probably lead to problems because now the length of the
419string is regarded as the address.
420
421</P>
422<P>
423To prevent errors at runtime caused by translations the <CODE>msgfmt</CODE>
424tool can check statically whether the arguments in the original and the
425translation string match in type and number. If this is not the case a
426warning will be given and the error cannot causes problems at runtime.
427
428</P>
429<P>
430If the word order in the above German translation would be correct one
431would have to write
432
433</P>
434
435<PRE>
436"%2$d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette `%1$s'"
437</PRE>
438
439<P>
440The routines in <CODE>msgfmt</CODE> know about this special notation.
441
442</P>
443<P>
444Because not all strings in a program must be format strings it is not
445useful for <CODE>msgfmt</CODE> to test all the strings in the <TT>`.po'</TT> file.
446This might cause problems because the string might contain what looks
447like a format specifier, but the string is not used in <CODE>printf</CODE>.
448
449</P>
450<P>
451Therefore the <CODE>xgettext</CODE> adds a special tag to those messages it
452thinks might be a format string. There is no absolute rule for this,
453only a heuristic. In the <TT>`.po'</TT> file the entry is marked using the
454<CODE>c-format</CODE> flag in the <KBD>#,</KBD> comment line (see section <A HREF="gettext_2.html#SEC9">The Format of PO Files</A>).
455
456</P>
457<P>
458The careful reader now might say that this again can cause problems.
459The heuristic might guess it wrong. This is true and therefore
460<CODE>xgettext</CODE> knows about special kind of comment which lets
461the programmer take over the decision. If in the same line or
462the immediately preceding line of the <CODE>gettext</CODE> keyword
463the <CODE>xgettext</CODE> program find a comment containing the words
464<KBD>xgettext:c-format</KBD> it will mark the string in any case with
465the <KBD>c-format</KBD> flag. This kind of comment should be used when
466<CODE>xgettext</CODE> does not recognize the string as a format string but
467is really is one and it should be tested. Please note that when the
468comment is in the same line of the <CODE>gettext</CODE> keyword, it must be
469before the string to be translated.
470
471</P>
472<P>
473This situation happens quite often. The <CODE>printf</CODE> function is often
474called with strings which do not contain a format specifier. Of course
475one would normally use <CODE>fputs</CODE> but it does happen. In this case
476<CODE>xgettext</CODE> does not recognize this as a format string but what
477happens if the translation introduces a valid format specifier? The
478<CODE>printf</CODE> function will try to access one of the parameter but none
479exists because the original code does not refer to any parameter.
480
481</P>
482<P>
483<CODE>xgettext</CODE> of course could make a wrong decision the other way
484round. A string marked as a format string is not really a format
485string. In this case the <CODE>msgfmt</CODE> might give too many warnings and
486would prevent translating the <TT>`.po'</TT> file. The method to prevent
487this wrong decision is similar to the one used above, only the comment
488to use must contain the string <KBD>xgettext:no-c-format</KBD>.
489
490</P>
491<P>
492If a string is marked with <KBD>c-format</KBD> and this is not correct the
493user can find out who is responsible for the decision. See section <A HREF="gettext_4.html#SEC20">Invoking the <CODE>xgettext</CODE> Program</A> to see how the <KBD>--debug</KBD> option can be used for solving
494this problem.
495
496</P>
497
498
499<H2><A NAME="SEC18" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC18">Special Cases of Translatable Strings</A></H2>
500
501<P>
502The attentive reader might now point out that it is not always possible
503to mark translatable string with <CODE>gettext</CODE> or something like this.
504Consider the following case:
505
506</P>
507
508<PRE>
509{
510 static const char *messages[] = {
511 "some very meaningful message",
512 "and another one"
513 };
514 const char *string;
515 ...
516 string
517 = index &#62; 1 ? "a default message" : messages[index];
518
519 fputs (string);
520 ...
521}
522</PRE>
523
524<P>
525While it is no problem to mark the string <CODE>"a default message"</CODE> it
526is not possible to mark the string initializers for <CODE>messages</CODE>.
527What is to be done? We have to fulfill two tasks. First we have to mark the
528strings so that the <CODE>xgettext</CODE> program (see section <A HREF="gettext_4.html#SEC20">Invoking the <CODE>xgettext</CODE> Program</A>)
529can find them, and second we have to translate the string at runtime
530before printing them.
531
532</P>
533<P>
534The first task can be fulfilled by creating a new keyword, which names a
535no-op. For the second we have to mark all access points to a string
536from the array. So one solution can look like this:
537
538</P>
539
540<PRE>
541#define gettext_noop(String) (String)
542
543{
544 static const char *messages[] = {
545 gettext_noop ("some very meaningful message"),
546 gettext_noop ("and another one")
547 };
548 const char *string;
549 ...
550 string
551 = index &#62; 1 ? gettext ("a default message") : gettext (messages[index]);
552
553 fputs (string);
554 ...
555}
556</PRE>
557
558<P>
559Please convince yourself that the string which is written by
560<CODE>fputs</CODE> is translated in any case. How to get <CODE>xgettext</CODE> know
561the additional keyword <CODE>gettext_noop</CODE> is explained in section <A HREF="gettext_4.html#SEC20">Invoking the <CODE>xgettext</CODE> Program</A>.
562
563</P>
564<P>
565The above is of course not the only solution. You could also come along
566with the following one:
567
568</P>
569
570<PRE>
571#define gettext_noop(String) (String)
572
573{
574 static const char *messages[] = {
575 gettext_noop ("some very meaningful message",
576 gettext_noop ("and another one")
577 };
578 const char *string;
579 ...
580 string
581 = index &#62; 1 ? gettext_noop ("a default message") : messages[index];
582
583 fputs (gettext (string));
584 ...
585}
586</PRE>
587
588<P>
589But this has some drawbacks. First the programmer has to take care that
590he uses <CODE>gettext_noop</CODE> for the string <CODE>"a default message"</CODE>.
591A use of <CODE>gettext</CODE> could have in rare cases unpredictable results.
592The second reason is found in the internals of the GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE>
593Library which will make this solution less efficient.
594
595</P>
596<P>
597One advantage is that you need not make control flow analysis to make
598sure the output is really translated in any case. But this analysis is
599generally not very difficult. If it should be in any situation you can
600use this second method in this situation.
601
602</P>
603<P><HR><P>
604<p>Go to the <A HREF="gettext_1.html">first</A>, <A HREF="gettext_2.html">previous</A>, <A HREF="gettext_4.html">next</A>, <A HREF="gettext_12.html">last</A> section, <A HREF="gettext_toc.html">table of contents</A>.
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