Re: i18n for yacc backend messages

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

Paul Eggert writes:

> I installed the following more-conservative patch, as it is some
> progress anyway.

Ok.

> Can you please explain why the token names should be translated?

Here's a part of LilyPond's yyttname table

  "MUSIC_FUNCTION_MARKUP_MARKUP_MUSIC", "DRUMS", "DRUMMODE", "'-'", "'+'",
  "UNARY_MINUS",

I would not want to feed those names to a user.  Eg, in LilyPond's
input language, DRUMS looks like `\drums'.  So that is the string you
want the user to see.  UNARY_MINUS should read '-', I guess.

As the syntax error is the most common message that a user will see
(in fact, that message got me started looking into this) and one of
the most cryptic ones too, I'd very much like that one translated
well; ie, in one string.

Maybe we can combine the two mechanisms, using

  0 _ ("syntax error, unexpected %s"),
  1 _ ("syntax error, unexpected %s, expecting %s"),
  2 _ ("syntax error, unexpected %s, expecting %s or %s"),

and

  2 + (n - 2) * _ (" or %s")

to be more flexible in increasing YYEXPECTINGMAX than my last patch,
with strings 0..4?

> It's possible that this should be an option, rather than being an
> unconditional translation.

Translation is always optional, I guess, but I would be perfectly
happy using an extra #define.

Jan.

-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org