bug#69985: Untranslatable message in src/chown-core.h:95

[Pádraig Brady]

On 24/03/2024 16:57, Frédéric Marchal wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In src/chown-core.h:95 (coreutils-9.5-pre1), the following message is
> impossible to translate as it is created by concatenating string fragments:
>
> static inline void
> emit_from_option_description (bool user)
> {
>    printf (_("\
>        --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP\n\
>                           change the %sgroup of each file only if\n\
>                           its current owner and/or group match those
> specified\n\
>                           here.  Either may be omitted, in which case a
> match\n\
>                           is not required for the omitted attribute\n\
> "), user ? "owner and/or " : "");
> }
>
> A translatable message must *never ever* be produced by concatenating
> substrings. Even if the substrings are themselves translated, there is no
> guaranties that the order of the words is the same in every language.
>
> There is, unfortunately, no easy solution that save keystrokes. It must be
> written like this:
>
> if (user)
>    printf (_("\
>        --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP\n\
>                           change the owner and/or group of each file only if\n\
>                           its current owner and/or group match those
> specified\n\
>                           here.  Either may be omitted, in which case a
> match\n\
>                           is not required for the omitted attribute\n\
> "));
> else
>    printf (_("\
>        --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP\n\
>                           change the group of each file only if\n\
>                           its current owner and/or group match those
> specified\n\
>                           here.  Either may be omitted, in which case a
> match\n\
>                           is not required for the omitted attribute\n\
> "));
>
> That make sense as both are distinct messages with different purposes.
>
> I also suspect that the two messages should be even more different than they
> currently are. The message, when user is false, suspiciously contains one more
> "owner and/or" that is not removed and it says "Either may be omitted" when
> only the group is mentioned at the beginning of the message.

The composed strings are accurate, but yes not translatable.
The attached simplifies the description a little,
so there is a single string to cater for both chown and chgrp.

Marking this as done.

thanks,
Pádraig

coreutils-chown-translation-fix.patch
Description: Text Data