----- Original Message ----- From: "Yedidyah Bar David" <didi@redhat.com> Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 9:12:32 AM
----- Original Message -----
From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen@redhat.com> To: devel@ovirt.org Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 4:04:23 PM Subject: [ovirt-devel] [ATTN] Changing messages with variable placeholders
all,
in general, changing non-English messages in the code is forbidden, as these are pulled automatically from the translation management system (Zanata).
HOWEVER: changing non-English messages in the code is *a must* in case not doing so will result in maven build failure.
this can happen when changing the quantity of variable placeholders in localized messages.
example:
let's say that I have an English message: "xxx {0} yyy {1}" and the parallel non-English messages are: "aaa {0} bbb {1}", "ccc ddd {0} {1}", "{1} eee fff {0}", etc.
If I am changing the English message to be: "xxx {0}" but leaving the parallel non-English messages as is: "aaa {0} bbb {1}", "ccc ddd {0} {1}", "eee {1} fff {0}", etc.
now the messages for the same key in different locales have different amounts of variable placeholders in them. this would result in a mvn build error.
** so whenever changing the quantity of variable placeholders in an English message, you must change the parallel non-English messages to match the new variable placeholders quantity. **
in the example above: the "{1}" placeholder (that was removed from the English message) should be removed from the non-English messages, so that the updated non-English messages would be: "aaa {0} bbb", "ccc ddd {0}", "eee fff {0}", etc.
you don't need to worry about the correctness of the non-English messages that you are changing; this will be taken care of in the translation cycle that will follow your patch. you just need to do the minimal changes necessary (remove placeholders / append placeholders) so that build errors will not occur.
NOTE: this can be very easily missed, as this type of build error will occur only when building the project with non-English locales (e.g. with the "BUILD_LOCALES=1" parameter within the "make" command in a devel env). So please - pay extra attention when making this kind of messages changes; if in doubt - build with "BUILD_LOCALES=1" and/or ask.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Many thanks in advance.
If the fix is really so simple, can't it be automated?
not sure exactly what you mean: automated how? once the developer changes an English message, when will the automatic change of the non-English messages occur? upon saving the English file? pre-compilation? and the developer still needs to be aware that non-English message files have been changes, so he won't forget to include them in the patch?... in any case: everyone are more than welcome to send patches for an automated solution, if there is any; until then - need to pay attention. thanks.
-- Didi