summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/po/README.md
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to '')
-rw-r--r--po/README.md460
1 files changed, 460 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/po/README.md b/po/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e4f897
--- /dev/null
+++ b/po/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,460 @@
+# Core GIT Translations
+
+This directory holds the translations for the core of Git. This document
+describes how you can contribute to the effort of enhancing the language
+coverage and maintaining the translation.
+
+The localization (l10n) coordinator, Jiang Xin <worldhello.net@gmail.com>,
+coordinates our localization effort in the l10n coordinator repository:
+
+ https://github.com/git-l10n/git-po/
+
+We will use XX as an alias to refer to the language translation code in
+the following paragraphs, for example we use "po/XX.po" to refer to the
+translation file for a specific language. But this doesn't mean that
+the language code has only two letters. The language code can be in one
+of two forms: "ll" or "ll\_CC". Here "ll" is the ISO 639 two-letter
+language code and "CC" is the ISO 3166 two-letter code for country names
+and subdivisions. For example: "de" for German language code, "zh\_CN"
+for Simplified Chinese language code.
+
+
+## Contributing to an existing translation
+
+As a contributor for a language XX, you should first check TEAMS file in
+this directory to see whether a dedicated repository for your language XX
+exists. Fork the dedicated repository and start to work if it exists.
+
+Sometime, contributors may find that the translations of their Git
+distributions are quite different with the translations of the
+corresponding version from Git official. This is because some Git
+distributions (such as from Ubuntu, etc.) have their own l10n workflow.
+For this case, wrong translations should be reported and fixed through
+their workflows.
+
+
+## Creating a new language translation
+
+If you are the first contributor for the language XX, please fork this
+repository, prepare and/or update the translated message file "po/XX.po"
+(described later), and ask the l10n coordinator to pull your work.
+
+If there are multiple contributors for the same language, please first
+coordinate among yourselves and nominate the team leader for your
+language, so that the l10n coordinator only needs to interact with one
+person per language.
+
+
+## Translation Process Flow
+
+The overall data-flow looks like this:
+
+ +-------------------+ +------------------+
+ | Git source code | ----(2)---> | L10n coordinator |
+ | repository | <---(5)---- | repository |
+ +-------------------+ +------------------+
+ | | ^
+ (1) (3) (4)
+ V v |
+ +----------------------------------+
+ | Language Team XX |
+ +----------------------------------+
+
+- Translatable strings are marked in the source file.
+- Language teams can start translation iterations at any time, even
+ before the l10n window opens:
+
+ + Pull from the master branch of the source (1)
+ + Update the message file by running "make po-update PO\_FILE=po/XX.po"
+ + Translate the message file "po/XX.po"
+
+- The L10n coordinator pulls from source and announces the l10n window
+ open (2)
+- Language team pulls from the l10n coordinator, starts another
+ translation iteration against the l10n coordinator's tree (3)
+
+ + Run "git pull --rebase" from the l10n coordinator
+ + Update the message file by running "make po-update PO\_FILE=po/XX.po"
+ + Translate the message file "po/XX.po"
+ + Squash trivial l10n git commits using "git rebase -i"
+
+- Language team sends pull request to the l10n coordinator (4)
+- L10n coordinator checks and merges
+- L10n coordinator asks the result to be pulled (5).
+
+
+## Dynamically generated POT files
+
+POT files are templates for l10n contributors to create or update their
+translation files. We used to have the "po/git.pot" file which was
+generated by the l10n coordinator, but this file had been removed from
+the tree.
+
+The two POT files "po/git.pot" and "po/git-core.pot" can be created
+dynamically when necessary.
+
+L10n contributors use "po/git.pot" to prepare translations for their
+languages, but they are not expected to modify it. The "po/git.pot" file
+can be generated manually with the following command:
+
+```shell
+make po/git.pot
+```
+
+The "po/git-core.pot" file is the template for core translations. A core
+translation is the minimum set of work necessary to complete a
+translation of a new language. Since there are more than 5000 messages
+in the full set of template message file "po/git.pot" that need to be
+translated, this is not a piece of cake for new language contributors.
+
+The "core" template file "po/git-core.pot" can be generated manually
+by running:
+
+```shell
+make po/git-core.pot
+```
+
+
+## Initializing a "XX.po" file
+
+(This is done by the language teams).
+
+If your language XX does not have translated message file "po/XX.po" yet,
+you add a translation for the first time by running:
+
+```shell
+make po-init PO_FILE=po/XX.po
+```
+
+where XX is the locale, e.g. "de", "is", "pt\_BR", "zh\_CN", etc.
+
+The newly generated message file "po/XX.po" is based on the core pot
+file "po/git-core.pot", so it contains only a minimal set of messages
+and it's a good start for a new language contribution.
+
+Once you are done testing the translation (see below), commit the result
+and ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
+
+
+## Updating a "XX.po" file
+
+(This is done by the language teams).
+
+If you are replacing translation strings in an existing "XX.po" file to
+improve the translation, just edit the file.
+
+If you want to find new translatable strings in source files of upstream
+repository and propagate them to your "po/XX.po", run command:
+
+```shell
+make po-update PO_FILE=po/XX.po
+```
+
+It will:
+
+- Call "make po/git.pot" to generate new "po/git.pot" file
+- Call "msgmerge --add-location --backup=off -U po/XX.po po/git.pot"
+ to update your "po/XX.po"
+- The "--add-location" option for msgmerge will add location lines,
+ and these location lines will help translation tools to locate
+ translation context easily.
+
+Once you are done testing the translation (see below), it's better
+to commit a location-less "po/XX.po" file to save repository space
+and make a user-friendly patch for review.
+
+To save a location-less "po/XX.po" automatically in repository, you
+can:
+
+First define a new attribute for "po/XX.po" by appending the following
+line in ".git/info/attributes":
+
+```
+/po/XX.po filter=gettext-no-location
+```
+
+Then define the driver for the "gettext-no-location" clean filter to
+strip out both filenames and locations from the contents as follows:
+
+```shell
+git config --global filter.gettext-no-location.clean \
+ "msgcat --no-location -"
+```
+
+For users who have gettext version 0.20 or higher, it is also possible
+to define a clean filter to preserve filenames but not locations:
+
+```shell
+git config --global filter.gettext-no-location.clean \
+ "msgcat --add-location=file -"
+```
+
+You're now ready to ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
+
+
+## Fuzzy translation
+
+Fuzzy translation is a translation marked by comment "fuzzy" to let you
+know that the translation is out of date because the "msgid" has been
+changed. A fuzzy translation will be ignored when compiling using "msgfmt".
+Fuzzy translation can be marked by hands, but for most cases they are
+marked automatically when running "msgmerge" to update your "XX.po" file.
+
+After fixing the corresponding translation, you must remove the "fuzzy"
+tag in the comment.
+
+
+## Testing your changes
+
+(This is done by the language teams, after creating or updating "XX.po" file).
+
+Before you submit your changes go back to the top-level and do:
+
+```shell
+make
+```
+
+On systems with GNU gettext (i.e. not Solaris) this will compile your
+changed PO file with `msgfmt --check`, the --check option flags many
+common errors, e.g. missing printf format strings, or translated
+messages that deviate from the originals in whether they begin/end
+with a newline or not.
+
+L10n coordinator will check your contributions using a helper program
+(see "PO helper" section below):
+
+```shell
+git-po-helper check-po po/XX.po
+git-po-helper check-commits <rev-list-opts>
+```
+
+
+## Marking strings for translation
+
+(This is done by the core developers).
+
+Before strings can be translated they first have to be marked for
+translation.
+
+Git uses an internationalization interface that wraps the system's
+gettext library, so most of the advice in your gettext documentation
+(on GNU systems `info gettext` in a terminal) applies.
+
+General advice:
+
+- Don't mark everything for translation, only strings which will be
+ read by humans (the porcelain interface) should be translated.
+
+ The output from Git's plumbing utilities will primarily be read by
+ programs and would break scripts under non-C locales if it was
+ translated. Plumbing strings should not be translated, since
+ they're part of Git's API.
+
+- Adjust the strings so that they're easy to translate. Most of the
+ advice in `info '(gettext)Preparing Strings'` applies here.
+
+- Strings referencing numbers of items may need to be split into singular and
+ plural forms; see the Q\_() wrapper in the C sub-section below for an
+ example.
+
+- If something is unclear or ambiguous you can use a "TRANSLATORS"
+ comment to tell the translators what to make of it. These will be
+ extracted by xgettext(1) and put in the "po/\*.po" files, e.g. from
+ git-am.sh:
+
+ ```shell
+ # TRANSLATORS: Make sure to include [y], [n], [e], [v] and [a]
+ # in your translation. The program will only accept English
+ # input at this point.
+ gettext "Apply? [y]es/[n]o/[e]dit/[v]iew patch/[a]ccept all "
+ ```
+
+ Or in C, from builtin/revert.c:
+
+ ```c
+ /* TRANSLATORS: %s will be "revert" or "cherry-pick" */
+ die(_("%s: Unable to write new index file"), action_name(opts));
+ ```
+
+We provide wrappers for C, Shell and Perl programs. Here's how they're
+used:
+
+
+### C
+
+Include builtin.h at the top, it'll pull in gettext.h, which
+defines the gettext interface. Consult with the list if you need to
+use gettext.h directly.
+
+The C interface is a subset of the normal GNU gettext
+interface. We currently export these functions:
+
+- \_()
+
+ Mark and translate a string. E.g.:
+
+ ```c
+ printf(_("HEAD is now at %s"), hex);
+ ```
+
+- Q\_()
+
+ Mark and translate a plural string. E.g.:
+
+ ```c
+ printf(Q_("%d commit", "%d commits", number_of_commits));
+ ```
+
+ This is just a wrapper for the ngettext() function.
+
+- N\_()
+
+ A no-op pass-through macro for marking strings inside static
+ initializations, e.g.:
+
+ ```c
+ static const char *reset_type_names[] = {
+ N_("mixed"), N_("soft"), N_("hard"), N_("merge"), N_("keep"), NULL
+ };
+ ```
+
+ And then, later:
+
+ ```c
+ die(_("%s reset is not allowed in a bare repository"),
+ _(reset_type_names[reset_type]));
+ ```
+
+ Here `_()` couldn't have statically determined what the translation
+ string will be, but since it was already marked for translation
+ with `N_()` the look-up in the message catalog will succeed.
+
+
+### Shell
+
+The Git gettext shell interface is just a wrapper for
+gettext.sh. Import it right after git-sh-setup like this:
+
+```shell
+. git-sh-setup
+. git-sh-i18n
+```
+
+And then use the `gettext` or `eval_gettext` functions:
+
+```shell
+# For constant interface messages:
+gettext "A message for the user"; echo
+
+# To interpolate variables:
+details="oh noes"
+eval_gettext "An error occurred: \$details"; echo
+```
+
+In addition we have wrappers for messages that end with a trailing
+newline. I.e. you could write the above as:
+
+```shell
+# For constant interface messages:
+gettextln "A message for the user"
+
+# To interpolate variables:
+details="oh noes"
+eval_gettextln "An error occurred: \$details"
+```
+
+More documentation about the interface is available in the GNU info
+page: `info '(gettext)sh'`. Looking at git-am.sh (the first shell
+command to be translated) for examples is also useful:
+
+```shell
+git log --reverse -p --grep=i18n git-am.sh
+```
+
+
+### Perl
+
+The Git::I18N module provides a limited subset of the
+Locale::Messages functionality, e.g.:
+
+```perl
+use Git::I18N;
+print __("Welcome to Git!\n");
+printf __("The following error occurred: %s\n"), $error;
+```
+
+Run `perldoc perl/Git/I18N.pm` for more info.
+
+
+## Testing marked strings
+
+Git's tests are run under `LANG=C LC_ALL=C`. So the tests do not need be
+changed to account for translations as they're added.
+
+
+## PO helper
+
+To make the maintenance of "XX.po" easier, the l10n coordinator and l10n
+team leaders can use a helper program named "git-po-helper". It is a
+wrapper to gettext suite, specifically written for the purpose of Git
+l10n workflow.
+
+To build and install the helper program from source, see
+[git-po-helper/README][].
+
+
+## Conventions
+
+There are some conventions that l10n contributors must follow:
+
+- The subject of each l10n commit should be prefixed with "l10n: ".
+
+- Do not use non-ASCII characters in the subject of a commit.
+
+- The length of commit subject (first line of the commit log) should
+ be less than 50 characters, and the length of other lines of the
+ commit log should be no more than 72 characters.
+
+- Add "Signed-off-by" trailer to your commit log, like other commits
+ in Git. You can automatically add the trailer by committing with
+ the following command:
+
+ ```shell
+ git commit -s
+ ```
+
+- Check syntax with "msgfmt" or the following command before creating
+ your commit:
+
+ ```shell
+ git-po-helper check-po <XX.po>
+ ```
+
+- Squash trivial commits to make history clear.
+
+- DO NOT edit files outside "po/" directory.
+
+- Other subsystems ("git-gui", "gitk", and Git itself) have their
+ own workflow. See [Documentation/SubmittingPatches][] for
+ instructions on how to contribute patches to these subsystems.
+
+
+To contribute for a new l10n language, contributor should follow
+additional conventions:
+
+- Initialize proper filename of the "XX.po" file conforming to
+ iso-639 and iso-3166.
+
+- Must complete a minimal translation based on the "Core
+ translation". See that section above.
+
+- Add a new entry in the "po/TEAMS" file with proper format, and check
+ the syntax of "po/TEAMS" by running the following command:
+
+ ```shell
+ git-po-helper team --check
+ ```
+
+
+[git-po-helper/README]: https://github.com/git-l10n/git-po-helper#readme
+[Documentation/SubmittingPatches]: Documentation/SubmittingPatches