Re: Gettext MO format version numbers

[Bruno Haible]

Dwayne Bailey wrote:
> > minor revision number is 1 (meaning that some strings have substrings
> > whose expansion depends on the system type).
> 
> Could you maybe explain what this means?

Currently, the substrings with system dependent expansion can be
  -  C 99 section 7.8.1 format string directives,
  - the "I" flag for outdigits (only supported by glibc systems).
See gettext/gettext-runtime/intl/loadmsgcat.c function get_sysdep_segment_value
for some details.

> > it is better to simply invoke 'msgfmt' and
> > 'msgunfmt' when creating or reading MO files, respectively.
> 
> In some use cases I've needed to ignore using the commands directly.

Why? If there is some option missing in msgfmt or msgunfmt, you can tell me.

> Now if I could do reading and writing like I do with libgettextpo that
> would help :)  But I guess that might be a lot of work for a single
> user.

libgettextpo was created for the purpose of PO file editors (think of
poedit). Currently I think you can do everything in this direction by
manipulating PO files in memory (via libgettextpo) and invoking
msgfmt/msgunfmt. But I certainly don't know your use case? Can you
explain your use case?

> 1) Would be good to reference people to gmo.h if they need further
> information.

It's well-known that for open-source software, if you want excruciating
details, you need to look in the source :-)

> 2) The page has an illustration of the structure of an MO file.  Your
> diff doesn't add information about system type entries to that picture.

Yes, that diagram would become way too confusing if these system dependent
substrings were included.

Bruno