[ovirt-devel] [ATTN] Changing messages with variable placeholders

[Yedidyah Bar David]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen at redhat.com>
> To: devel at 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?
-- 
Didi