Re: Coordination on standardizing gettext() in future POSIX

[Bruno Haible]

Jörg Schilling wrote:
> OK, then use:
> 
>       printf "$(gettext 'Hello World %d')\\n" $$

This is a good solution to the problem of gettext with sentences with
embedded arguments.

I withdraw my objection about "half of the necessary API".

The other objection, that we should avoid copying the echo(1) mess regarding
escape sequences into gettext(1), still stands.

> If you use a modern printf(1) implementation (as available in "bosh"), you 
> could even use:
> 
>       printf "$(gettext 'Hello World %2$d %1$d')\\n"  1 2
> 
> to be able to control the order of the output of arguments in a way that is 
> specific to the target language. ...

> BTW: this extension is also available in /bin/printf on OpenSolaris and 
> FreeBSD.

Yes, it would be good to have this %n$d syntax in 'printf' standardized
by POSIX [1]. This way of allowing argument reordering by translators is
supported by many programming languages. It would be good to have it
portably supported in shell scripts as well.

Bruno

[1] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/printf.html