Re: Really a valid file?

[Bruno Haible]

Stanislav Visnovsky wrote:

> The attached is a piece of Python 2.1 template. They have a bug in
> script generating the POT file, so it contains a sequence \r\n binary (not 
> textually as it should). In fact, it contains only 0x0D.
> 
> Msgfmt accepts the file without any message, but I would not consider it
> to be a valid PO file (it contains an (Mac)  end of line without quote).
> 
> Thanks for clarification.

Hi,

Such a POT file is valid, but not very useful. It is valid because the
gettext doc doesn't restrict the characters that can occur in POT file
strings; therefore ASCII control characters (other than NUL) are
valid. It is not useful, because if the \r in the string has a meaning
and should be preserved in translations, how would translators type
this character in kbabel and similar; and if it has no meaning, then
why don't you omit it from the POT file.

msgfmt accepts this POT file, but the other tools like msgcat or
msgmerge give a warning:

  msgcat: internationalized messages should not contain the `\r' escape sequence

Btw, for generating POT files for Python source code, there is also
xgettext available (since gettext-0.11.1), and it doesn't have the bug
you mention.

Bruno