Re: Do not translate <placeholder-X/> tags (xml2po)

[Karl Eichwalder]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

> I can basically imagine three kinds of "must not translate" constraints
> relating to XML:
>
>   - xml-markup         preserve the fact that it's XML, but free to remove, 
> add,
>                        or replace XML elements.
>   - xml-structure      preserve the XML tags, but free to change the text
>                        inside and outside the XML elements.
>   - flat-xml-structure preserve the XML elements and their contents, but free
>                        to change text outside all XML elements.

If the extraction tool extracts the outer elements, you'd probably not
allowed the change those, but it could be ok to change the inline
elements.  That's the forth possibility.

Otherwise you are right.

> Examples:
>
>   #, xml-structure
>   msgid "<placeholder-1/> -- switch off APM completely"
>
>   #, flat-xml-structure
>   msgid "<em>apm=off</em>  -- switch off APM completely"
>
> Would that be something useful?

Concerning xml2po generated pot files that would be a fatal error.
Checking for the empty placeholder-X elements would just be a start, but
essential for these files.

> Also, some people have proposed [1] to use the W3C International Tag Set
> specification for internationalizing pieces of XML. How does this relate
> to 'xml2po'? Would such xml-markup / xml-structure annotations be useful
> in this context as well?
> [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2008-03/msg00020.html

In general yes (thanks for the link!).  The xml2po maintainer would have
to implement such a mechanism.  But I think it is not able to solve the
placeholder-X issue.

-- 
Karl Eichwalder
R&D / Documentation

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