Re: Help with some definitions to translate

[Jim Meyering]

On Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 7:51 AM remusgabriel.chelu--- via
<diffutils-devel@gnu.org> wrote:
> Hello, my name is Remus-Gabriel Chelu, and I am translating this program into 
> the Romanian language.
> I have come across some definitions that I don't know exactly what they refer 
> to, in order to make a more exact translation.
> These definitions are, in order of appearance:
> - door --> access, admission, door, doorway, entrance, exit, fold, gate (or 
> another thing)
> - named file --> file with name, named file (or another thing)
> - whiteout --> white veil, whiten, whitening (or another thing)
> - typed memory object --> memory object typed, standardized memory object, 
> written memory object (or another thing)
>  Thanks in advance for the help!
>  Have a nice day!
> PS: I have looked at the translations of the other Latin languages (French, 
> Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) and apparently their translators are also 
> "blank" regarding these definitions.
> Therefore, I suggest, if it seems appropriate, include some comments with the 
> explanation of these definitions.

Thanks for translating.

While the value of translations of those strings seems very low to me,
I did a little digging.

Those are esoteric file type names and the strings come from gnulib's
file-type.c.
They correspond to stat(2) macros like S_ISDOOR and S_ISWHT.
For whiteout, it's an old BSD-era type of file that was used to
"remove" (actually "cause to appear to be absent") a file from an
underlying read-only file system image.
It's old enough that I think it is very unlikely to have been printed
via diff tools in the last 5-10 years.

I like what I see in fr.po for "whiteout", since the French "voilé"
means "veiled":
> msgstr "voilé (whiteout)"

I don't know what S_ISNAM ("named file") is, but did find a reference
to it being Xenix-related in gdb's sources, so it's probably no longer
relevant.

a "typed memory object" is a POSIX-specified construct. See
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/posix_typed_mem_open.html,
so probably deserves a literal translation.

A "door" is a reference to this Solaris invention:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doors_(computing)