gettext: Obsolete Entries
8.3.8 Obsolete Entries
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By “obsolete” PO file entries, we mean those entries which are
commented out, usually by ‘msgmerge’ when it found that the translation
is not needed anymore by the package being localized.
The usual commands moving from entry to entry consider obsolete
entries on the same level as active entries. Obsolete entries are
easily recognizable by the fact that all their lines start with ‘#’,
even those lines containing ‘msgid’ or ‘msgstr’.
Commands exist for emptying the translation or reinitializing it to
the original untranslated string. Commands interfacing with the kill
ring may force some previously saved text into the translation. The
user may interactively edit the translation. All these commands may
apply to obsolete entries, carefully leaving the entry obsolete after
the fact.
Moreover, some commands are more specifically related to obsolete
entry processing.
‘o’
Find the next obsolete entry (‘po-next-obsolete-entry’).
‘O’
Find the previous obsolete entry (‘po-previous-obsolete-entry’).
‘<DEL>’
Make an active entry obsolete, or zap out an obsolete entry
(‘po-fade-out-entry’).
The commands ‘o’ (‘po-next-obsolete-entry’) and ‘O’
(‘po-previous-obsolete-entry’) move forwards or backwards, chasing for
an obsolete entry. If none is found, the search is extended and wraps
around in the PO file buffer.
PO mode does not provide ways for un-commenting an obsolete entry and
making it active, because this would reintroduce an original
untranslated string which does not correspond to any marked string in
the program sources. This goes with the philosophy of never introducing
useless ‘msgid’ values.
However, it is possible to comment out an active entry, so making it
obsolete. GNU ‘gettext’ utilities will later react to the disappearance
of a translation by using the untranslated string. The command ‘<DEL>’
(‘po-fade-out-entry’) pushes the current entry a little further towards
annihilation. If the entry is active (it is a translated entry), then
it is first made fuzzy. If it is already fuzzy, then the entry is
merely commented out, with confirmation. If the entry is already
obsolete, then it is completely deleted from the PO file. It is easy to
recycle the translation so deleted into some other PO file entry,
usually one which is untranslated. ⇒Modifying Translations.
Here is a quite interesting problem to solve for later development of
PO mode, for those nights you are not sleepy. The idea would be that PO
mode might become bright enough, one of these days, to make good guesses
at retrieving the most probable candidate, among all obsolete entries,
for initializing the translation of a newly appeared string. I think it
might be a quite hard problem to do this algorithmically, as we have to
develop good and efficient measures of string similarity. Right now, PO
mode completely lets the decision to the translator, when the time comes
to find the adequate obsolete translation, it merely tries to provide
handy tools for helping her to do so.
Info Catalog
gettext: Untranslated Entries
gettext: PO Mode
gettext: Modifying Translations