At 6:55 PM +0000 4/26/07, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
Chuck Houpt dixit:
However, since LC_MESSAGES is designed to control the
language used for "informative messages", and web pages are a kind of
informational message,
They aren't. They are *data*, not part of the programme. Otherwise,
content you write in a word processor would be an informative message
of it? Even GPL'd if the word processor itself is?
I think you've gotten to the heart of the issue. Are web pages/sites
just data? Certainly, if Lynx was just a static HTML file viewer
program, like the text viewers more/less, then I would agree 100%
with you.
However, I think web sites have more in common with interpreted
programs than static data. A web site executes via a combination of a
local HTML/HTTP interpreter (lynx), and server side code. Lynx is
more like an interpreter (perl, java, etc), than a static data viewer
or editor (more, less, emacs, vi).
How do interpreters handle locales? In general, they convert the
system's locale into a form that can be accessed from the interpreted
programming language. Some languages have locale APIs that are very
similar to Unix (Perl). Others, like Java, have cross-platform APIs
that require greater conversion.
HTTP's Accept-Language "API" is very foreign, but a basic locale
setting can be converted. Of course, the settings should be fully
customizable.
Some illustrative examples:
Given that myprog.pl is an multilingual Perl script, then the
following will display myprog messages in Japanese:
export LANG=ja
perl myprog.pl
Give that Google.com is a multilingual web site, then the following
should display with Google's Japanese messages (modulo custom
settings):
export LANG=ja
lynx http://google.com
Like myprog.pl, http://google.com is a kind of program - a web app.
Like any multilingual program, I would expect it to honor system
language settings.
- Chuck
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