Re: x-scheme fails to parse multiline strings

[Bruno Haible]

Tim Janik wrote:
> hi Bruno.
>
> looks like you're the last person who hacked on x-scheme.c in gettext,
> so i'm emailing you.

That's ok, but the normal address for bug reports regarding xgettext is still
the address mentioned in the "xgettext --help" output.

> i'm maitaining a project with a couple scheme
> files (beast.gtk.org) and need proper translation support for them.
> similar to what i can do in my .c, .cc and .idl files.
> i'm currently using a hacked up version of intltool to achive this,
> because xgettext has some problems in extracting strings from my
> scheme files. here's an excerpt:
>
>    (bse-script-register 'mixer-splitup-by-track
>                         ""
>                         (N_ "/Song/Assign Tracks to individual Mixer
> Busses") (N_ "This script creates a new Mixer Bus for each track in the "
> "song that is currently using the Master Bus as output.") "Stefan
> Westerfeld"
>                         "GNU General Public License"
>                         (bse-param-song (N_ "Song")))
>    [...]
>    (if (not (bse-is-song song))
>        (bse-exit-error 'text1 (_ "No valid song supplied")))
>
> this yields when parsed with xgettext like this:
>    xgettext --add-comments --keyword=_  --keyword=N_ -o -
> these messages:
>
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm:25
>    msgid "/Song/Assign Tracks to individual Mixer Busses"
>    msgstr ""
>
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm:26
>    msgid "This script creates a new Mixer Bus for each track in the "
>    msgstr ""
>
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm:30
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/song-parts-operations.scm:30
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/song-parts-operations.scm:39
>    msgid "Song"
>    msgstr ""
>
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm:57
>    #: /usr/src/beast/library/scripts/song-parts-operations.scm:45
>    msgid "No valid song supplied"
>    msgstr ""
>
> while it should yield (excerpt from beasts de.po):
>
>    #: ../library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm.h:25
>    msgid "/Song/Assign Tracks to individual Mixer Busses"
>    msgstr ""
>
>    #: ../library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm.h:26
>    msgid ""
>    "This script creates a new Mixer Bus for each track in the song that is
> " "currently using the Master Bus as output."
>    msgstr ""
>
>    #: ../library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm.h:30
>    #: ../library/scripts/song-parts-operations.scm.h:30
>    #: ../library/scripts/song-parts-operations.scm.h:39
>    msgid "Song"
>    msgstr "Titel"
>
>    #: ../library/scripts/mixer-splitup-by-track.scm.h:57
>    #: ../library/scripts/song-parts-operations.scm.h:45
>    #, fuzzy
>    msgid "No valid song supplied"
>    msgstr "Synthesemodule"
>
>
> i.e. it looks like multiline strings are not treated correctly by
> xgettext. this is using xgettext from debian stable, i.e.:
> xgettext (GNU gettext-tools) 0.14.4.

This is normal. The code that you wrote doesn't use multiline strings;
instead your N_ appears to be a function that receives 1 or 2 (or more?)
strings and concatenates them.

By multiline strings, I understand strings with embedded newlines (these
are allowed in Scheme, see
http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/HTML/r5rs-Z-H-10.html#%_sec_7.1.1)
xgettext extracts them correctly, preserving the newlines correctly:

======================= foo.scm ===========================
   (bse-script-register 'mixer-splitup-by-track
                        ""
                        (N_ "/Song/Assign Tracks to individual Mixer Busses")
                        (N_ "This script creates a new Mixer Bus for each track 
in the
song that is currently using the Master Bus as output.")
                        "Stefan Westerfeld"
                        "GNU General Public License"
                        (bse-param-song (N_ "Song")))
   [...]
   (if (not (bse-is-song song))
       (bse-exit-error 'text1 (_ "No valid song supplied")))
=============================================================
$ xgettext --keyword=_  --keyword=N_ -o - foo.scm
...
#: foo.scm:4
msgid ""
"This script creates a new Mixer Bus for each track in the\n"
"song that is currently using the Master Bus as output."
msgstr ""

> is there anything i can help with to get this fixed?

xgettext does not support automatic concatenation of strings, because this
is a feature rarely found in languages of the Lisp family.

You can of course modify xgettext so that it concatenates all arguments to
a particular function. But IMO it would be easier to just concatenate the
two strings in the Scheme source code.

Bruno