Re: lynx-dev Re: da.po file

[Henry Nelson]

> > Besides serving as placeholders for missing translations (e.g.,

It is my feeling that if there is no translation (="missing translation"?),
then putting in a "placeholder" is confusing because it suggests that it
is holding a place for a translation that does exist somewhere.

> > Spanish), the po files are used by configure to create the proper
> > makefile structure (see line after "dnl Set of available languages
> > (based on source distribution)" in configure.in). If the placeholder
> > wasn't there, and you just copied a full po file there after running
> > configure, then the message file would not get built or installed. IIRC,
> > this configure step was done so we would not have to hard code the
> > languages into the makefiles anywhere (but we do need to remember the
> > placeholder files ;-).

I can't see that there is much difference to having placeholder files
and having the po files listed in the makefile, from either the system
installer's or the end user's point of view.

> Is there any strong objection to the da.po placeholder file being added
> to the distribution based on the above? If so, please propose some
> alternate configure method. If not, Tom, please add the da.po file on

Of course we all welcome the da.po file being either listed in the makefile
or put in as a placeholder file.  But as to the configure method, does the
configure script respect LINGUAS?  I threw in the towel so early in the
game, I hardly know what the Lynx package does anymore wrt po.  One thing
which turned me off pronto was having to install messages for languages
I don't know or for which the translations were bogus.

Quoting from the gettext docs:
<blockquote>
   Internationalized packages have usually many `LL.po' files.  Unless
translations are disabled, all those available are installed together
with the package.  However, the environment variable `LINGUAS' may be
set, prior to configuration, to limit the installed set.  `LINGUAS'
should then contain a space separated list of two-letter codes, stating
which languages are allowed.
</blockquote>

__Henry

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