[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Arabic plural forms issues


>    Plural forms 0, 1 and 2 don't require a variable, and here comes
another
> issue. If two variables are included in the string, say %s and %d, and
> that %d is omitted this leads the application to crash (Segmentation
fault)
> [3]. A solution exists, it is to use variable shuffling, which displays a
> correct result and doesn't crash [4]. This need be documented and tested
for
> other implementations other than C. (Thank you Djihed for the idea)



If I understand correctly, we are asking developers to use variable
shuffling to avoid the segmentation fault. But is Arabic the only language
that has plural forms that dont require a variable? If Arabic is not the
only language, shouldn't variable shuffling be already in wide use when it
comes to plural forms and applications that support them?


No, it is us -the translators- who does the shuffling, as we are in
charge of delivering the strings. We could write %2$s instead of  %s
for example.

Here is an explanation of the problem, and a small discussion with
references to similar problems in other languages:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-devel-list/2006-July/msg00012.html

Djihed