TRANSLATING (second iteration)

Here's the second iteration of the TRANSLATING document. Comments?

bye,

Erik.

-----------------------------

                                                              -*- text -*-

If you are contributing code or translations to the Subversion project,
please read this first.

                   ===============================
                   Guide to translating Subversion
                   ===============================

$LastChangedDate$

* Introduction
* Starting a new translation
* Updating existing po files
* Requirements for po and mo files
* Conventions for the empty string msgid section
* Translation teams
* Single versus double quotes


Introduction
============

Subversion uses gettext for its translation. Gettext uses '.po' files
to store translation information; the existing ones are kept in the
subversion/po directory of the repository.
[Note that the last paragraph deliberately does not say GNU gettext.]

Please take some time to go through this document as well as the HACKING
document also in this directory.


Starting a new translation
==========================

Before starting a new translation please contact the subversion
development mailing list to make sure you are not duplicating efforts.

After that, you should perform the following steps:

 Unix

1) check out Subversion (see INSTALL for more information)
2) run ./autogen.sh
3) run ./configure
4) run make locale-gnu-pot
  This step is currently only supported for GNU gettext Makefile based
systems
5) Copy the generated subversion.pot to a file named LANG.po, where LANG
  is the language code of your language.

Steps (2) and (3) generate a Makefile; step (4) generates
subversion/po/subversion.pot


Updating existing po files
==========================

The Makefile based part of the build system contains a make target to
facilitate maintenance of existing po files. To update po files


Requirements for po and mo files
================================

Any mo file used with Subversion - whether obtained through the project or
created locally - must satisfy two conditions:

1) mo files must be UTF-8 encoded
2) the empty string section (msgid "") must not contain a 'charset='
  string

These requirements stem from the fact that Subversion uses UTF-8
internally, some implementations translate to the active locale and the
fact that bind_textdomain_codeset() is not portable accross
implementations.

To satisfy the first requirement po files are required to be UTF-8
encoded. The build system makes sure that the second requirement is
satisfied. (Though this is yet to be implemented.)


Conventions for the empty string msgid section
==============================================

Some gettext implementations use a section with a msgid "" (empty string)
to keep administrative data. One of the strings suggested is the
'Last-Translator:' field. Because the Subversion project has a policy not
to name names in specific files, but give credit in the repository log
messages, you are requested not to use this field.


Translation teams
=================

The translation project (http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~gnutra/po/HTML/)
attempts to organise translation attempts and get translators for
various packages. Some teams have guidelines to stimulate consistency
across packages.


Single versus double quotes
===========================

The project has standardised the use of quotes. Some translation teams
have done the same. If there is no translation team for your locale or
they did not standardise quoting, please follow the project guidelines per
HACKING. If they did: follow them :-)

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