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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>57.1. For the Translator</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="nls.html" title="Chapter 57. Native Language Support" /><link rel="next" href="nls-programmer.html" title="57.2. For the Programmer" /></head><body id="docContent" class="container-fluid col-10"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">57.1. For the Translator</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="nls.html" title="Chapter 57. Native Language Support">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="nls.html" title="Chapter 57. Native Language Support">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 57. Native Language Support</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.5 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="nls-programmer.html" title="57.2. For the Programmer">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" id="NLS-TRANSLATOR"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">57.1. For the Translator</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.8.2.3">57.1.1. Requirements</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.8.2.4">57.1.2. Concepts</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.8.2.5">57.1.3. Creating and Maintaining Message Catalogs</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="nls-translator.html#id-1.10.8.2.6">57.1.4. Editing the PO Files</a></span></dt></dl></div><p>
<span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>
programs (server and client) can issue their messages in
your favorite language — if the messages have been translated.
Creating and maintaining translated message sets needs the help of
people who speak their own language well and want to contribute to
the <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> effort. You do not have to be a
programmer at all
to do this. This section explains how to help.
</p><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.8.2.3"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">57.1.1. Requirements</h3></div></div></div><p>
We won't judge your language skills — this section is about
software tools. Theoretically, you only need a text editor. But
this is only in the unlikely event that you do not want to try out
your translated messages. When you configure your source tree, be
sure to use the <code class="option">--enable-nls</code> option. This will
also check for the <span class="application">libintl</span> library and the
<code class="filename">msgfmt</code> program, which all end users will need
anyway. To try out your work, follow the applicable portions of
the installation instructions.
</p><p>
If you want to start a new translation effort or want to do a
message catalog merge (described later), you will need the
programs <code class="filename">xgettext</code> and
<code class="filename">msgmerge</code>, respectively, in a GNU-compatible
implementation. Later, we will try to arrange it so that if you
use a packaged source distribution, you won't need
<code class="filename">xgettext</code>. (If working from Git, you will still need
it.) <span class="application">GNU Gettext 0.10.36</span> or later is currently recommended.
</p><p>
Your local gettext implementation should come with its own
documentation. Some of that is probably duplicated in what
follows, but for additional details you should look there.
</p></div><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.8.2.4"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">57.1.2. Concepts</h3></div></div></div><p>
The pairs of original (English) messages and their (possibly)
translated equivalents are kept in <em class="firstterm">message
catalogs</em>, one for each program (although related
programs can share a message catalog) and for each target
language. There are two file formats for message catalogs: The
first is the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">PO</span>”</span> file (for Portable Object), which
is a plain text file with special syntax that translators edit.
The second is the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">MO</span>”</span> file (for Machine Object),
which is a binary file generated from the respective PO file and
is used while the internationalized program is run. Translators
do not deal with MO files; in fact hardly anyone does.
</p><p>
The extension of the message catalog file is to no surprise either
<code class="filename">.po</code> or <code class="filename">.mo</code>. The base
name is either the name of the program it accompanies, or the
language the file is for, depending on the situation. This is a
bit confusing. Examples are <code class="filename">psql.po</code> (PO file
for psql) or <code class="filename">fr.mo</code> (MO file in French).
</p><p>
The file format of the PO files is illustrated here:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
# comment
msgid "original string"
msgstr "translated string"
msgid "more original"
msgstr "another translated"
"string can be broken up like this"
...
</pre><p>
The msgid lines are extracted from the program source. (They need not
be, but this is the most common way.) The msgstr lines are
initially empty and are filled in with useful strings by the
translator. The strings can contain C-style escape characters and
can be continued across lines as illustrated. (The next line must
start at the beginning of the line.)
</p><p>
The # character introduces a comment. If whitespace immediately
follows the # character, then this is a comment maintained by the
translator. There can also be automatic comments, which have a
non-whitespace character immediately following the #. These are
maintained by the various tools that operate on the PO files and
are intended to aid the translator.
</p><pre class="programlisting">
#. automatic comment
#: filename.c:1023
#, flags, flags
</pre><p>
The #. style comments are extracted from the source file where the
message is used. Possibly the programmer has inserted information
for the translator, such as about expected alignment. The #:
comments indicate the exact locations where the message is used
in the source. The translator need not look at the program
source, but can if there is doubt about the correct
translation. The #, comments contain flags that describe the
message in some way. There are currently two flags:
<code class="literal">fuzzy</code> is set if the message has possibly been
outdated because of changes in the program source. The translator
can then verify this and possibly remove the fuzzy flag. Note
that fuzzy messages are not made available to the end user. The
other flag is <code class="literal">c-format</code>, which indicates that
the message is a <code class="function">printf</code>-style format
template. This means that the translation should also be a format
string with the same number and type of placeholders. There are
tools that can verify this, which key off the c-format flag.
</p></div><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.8.2.5"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">57.1.3. Creating and Maintaining Message Catalogs</h3></div></div></div><p>
OK, so how does one create a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">blank</span>”</span> message
catalog? First, go into the directory that contains the program
whose messages you want to translate. If there is a file
<code class="filename">nls.mk</code>, then this program has been prepared
for translation.
</p><p>
If there are already some <code class="filename">.po</code> files, then
someone has already done some translation work. The files are
named <code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em>.po</code>,
where <em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em> is the
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php" target="_top">
ISO 639-1 two-letter language code (in lower case)</a>, e.g.,
<code class="filename">fr.po</code> for French. If there is really a need
for more than one translation effort per language then the files
can also be named
<code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em>_<em class="replaceable"><code>region</code></em>.po</code>
where <em class="replaceable"><code>region</code></em> is the
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html" target="_top">
ISO 3166-1 two-letter country code (in upper case)</a>,
e.g.,
<code class="filename">pt_BR.po</code> for Portuguese in Brazil. If you
find the language you wanted you can just start working on that
file.
</p><p>
If you need to start a new translation effort, then first run the
command:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
make init-po
</pre><p>
This will create a file
<code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>progname</code></em>.pot</code>.
(<code class="filename">.pot</code> to distinguish it from PO files that
are <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">in production</span>”</span>. The <code class="literal">T</code> stands for
<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">template</span>”</span>.)
Copy this file to
<code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>language</code></em>.po</code> and
edit it. To make it known that the new language is available,
also edit the file <code class="filename">nls.mk</code> and add the
language (or language and country) code to the line that looks like:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
AVAIL_LANGUAGES := de fr
</pre><p>
(Other languages can appear, of course.)
</p><p>
As the underlying program or library changes, messages might be
changed or added by the programmers. In this case you do not need
to start from scratch. Instead, run the command:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
make update-po
</pre><p>
which will create a new blank message catalog file (the pot file
you started with) and will merge it with the existing PO files.
If the merge algorithm is not sure about a particular message it
marks it <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">fuzzy</span>”</span> as explained above. The new PO file
is saved with a <code class="filename">.po.new</code> extension.
</p></div><div class="sect2" id="id-1.10.8.2.6"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">57.1.4. Editing the PO Files</h3></div></div></div><p>
The PO files can be edited with a regular text editor. The
translator should only change the area between the quotes after
the msgstr directive, add comments, and alter the fuzzy flag.
There is (unsurprisingly) a PO mode for Emacs, which I find quite
useful.
</p><p>
The PO files need not be completely filled in. The software will
automatically fall back to the original string if no translation
(or an empty translation) is available. It is no problem to
submit incomplete translations for inclusions in the source tree;
that gives room for other people to pick up your work. However,
you are encouraged to give priority to removing fuzzy entries
after doing a merge. Remember that fuzzy entries will not be
installed; they only serve as reference for what might be the right
translation.
</p><p>
Here are some things to keep in mind while editing the
translations:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>
Make sure that if the original ends with a newline, the
translation does, too. Similarly for tabs, etc.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
If the original is a <code class="function">printf</code> format string, the translation
also needs to be. The translation also needs to have the same
format specifiers in the same order. Sometimes the natural
rules of the language make this impossible or at least awkward.
In that case you can modify the format specifiers like this:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
msgstr "Die Datei %2$s hat %1$u Zeichen."
</pre><p>
Then the first placeholder will actually use the second
argument from the list. The
<code class="literal"><em class="replaceable"><code>digits</code></em>$</code> needs to
follow the % immediately, before any other format manipulators.
(This feature really exists in the <code class="function">printf</code>
family of functions. You might not have heard of it before because
there is little use for it outside of message
internationalization.)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
If the original string contains a linguistic mistake, report
that (or fix it yourself in the program source) and translate
normally. The corrected string can be merged in when the
program sources have been updated. If the original string
contains a factual mistake, report that (or fix it yourself)
and do not translate it. Instead, you can mark the string with
a comment in the PO file.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Maintain the style and tone of the original string.
Specifically, messages that are not sentences (<code class="literal">cannot
open file %s</code>) should probably not start with a
capital letter (if your language distinguishes letter case) or
end with a period (if your language uses punctuation marks).
It might help to read <a class="xref" href="error-style-guide.html" title="56.3. Error Message Style Guide">Section 56.3</a>.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
If you don't know what a message means, or if it is ambiguous,
ask on the developers' mailing list. Chances are that English
speaking end users might also not understand it or find it
ambiguous, so it's best to improve the message.
</p></li></ul></div><p>
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