Gettext MO format version numbers

[Dwayne Bailey]

Hi,

We are able to parse and produce .mo files using the Translate Toolkit.
This works flawlessly but I have noticed the following issues and hoped
that I could get some clarity on the versioning of the format.

1) The Gettext documentation states that we are at version 0 of the
format.  Yet I have observed some files with a version number of 1, in
the wild.  I was able to parse them correctly by simply ignoring the
version information.  Is there such a version?

2) .mo files for certain RTL languages have different version number.
msgfmt and msgunfmt are able to read these files but when opened in a
hex editor the first few bytes are as follows:

DE12 0495 0100 0100

I took the installed .mo file msgunfmt then msgfmt and I get the same
version information.  I was hoping that you could provide some clarity
on this issue.

Simply ignoring the version information allowed me to read these files
correctly.  But I would like to know the cause so that we can continue
to produce correct .mo files.


-- 
Dwayne Bailey
Associate                                      +27 12 460 1095 (w)
Translate.org.za                               +27 83 443 7114 (c)

Recent blog posts:
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http://www.translate.org.za/blogs/dwayne/en/content/fixes-skype-video-webcam-fedora
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