From: nobu.nokada@...
Date: 2003-07-02T00:35:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Message catalogs (I18N) overnight hack...

Hi,

At Tue, 1 Jul 2003 22:42:13 +0900,
Hal E. Fulton wrote:
> >     printf("I gave the %1$s to %2$s", thing, recipient)
> 
> Yes, that is how I have done it in C on AIX. :)
> 
> But I simplified it in my code -- it does not require
> any change to printf or to its format string. I use
> markers in the translated strings themselves:

Change?  Although I may not correctly understand what you mean,
it's already even in 1.6.

>   "I gave the %1 to %2."  -->
>   "Ich habe den %2 zu %1 gegeben."  # Word ending issues!

$ ruby-1.6 -v -e 'thing="thing";recipient="recipient";
  printf("I gave the %1$s to %2$s\n", thing, recipient);
  printf("Ich habe den %2$s zu %1$s gegeben.\n", thing, recipient)'
ruby 1.6.8 (2003-06-28) [i686-linux]
I gave the thing to recipient
Ich habe den recipient zu thing gegeben.

> Apparently you know something about I18N. How are issues
> like word endings usually handled? With different messages??
> 
> For example, "I saw the %1" in English -- in German,
> "Ich sah den Wagen" (I saw the car) but "Ich sah die Bruecke"
> (I saw the bridge).

I know just gettext can handle plural forms, but nothing about
this case.  How do German solve this issue in gettext?

-- 
Nobu Nakada