On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 22:57:22 +0100 Henning Meier-Geinitz <[email protected]> wrote:
> So first, a technical question: can we assume that the GNU gettext > generated .gmo files are the same on every platform? So transferring > over the net from a completely different computer works? Otherwise we > can't use them for the function approach. The .gmo files are written in the byte order of the machine where they are generated (so there are two possible versions of the format). However, the GNU gettext library can load .gmo files both in the native and byte-swapped format (of course the native format will be faster). As alwayse, there is a possibility for a format change (the .gmo format includes a version number field). However, there is another potential problem with this approach (translation in the frontend). What if the backend returns some string which contains variable information, e.g. by using sprintf() internally? In this case it is the format string which must be translated, not the result of formatting - but such format string translation can be performed only in the backend. Such situation can arise with extended error messages (a backend may wish to include some useful diagnostic information in the returned string).
