https://github.com/git-l10n/git-po/
-The two character language translation codes are defined by ISO\_639-1, as
-stated in the gettext(1) full manual, appendix A.1, Usual Language Codes.
+We will use XX as an alias to refer to the language translation code in
+the following paragraphs, for example we use "po/XX.po" to refer to the
+translation file for a specific language. But this doesn't mean that
+the language code has only two letters. The language code can be in one
+of two forms: "ll" or "ll\_CC". Here "ll" is the ISO 639 two-letter
+language code and "CC" is the ISO 3166 two-letter code for country names
+and subdivisions. For example: "de" for German language code, "zh\_CN"
+for Simplified Chinese language code.
## Contributing to an existing translation
person per language.
-## Core translation
+## Translation Process Flow
-The core translation is the smallest set of work that must be completed
-for a new language translation. Because there are more than 5000 messages
-in the template message file "po/git.pot" that need to be translated,
-this is not a piece of cake for the contributor for a new language.
+The overall data-flow looks like this:
-The core template message file which contains a small set of messages
-will be generated in "po-core/core.pot" automatically by running a helper
-program named "git-po-helper" (described later).
+ +-------------------+ +------------------+
+ | Git source code | ----(2)---> | L10n coordinator |
+ | repository | <---(5)---- | repository |
+ +-------------------+ +------------------+
+ | | ^
+ (1) (3) (4)
+ V v |
+ +----------------------------------+
+ | Language Team XX |
+ +----------------------------------+
-```shell
-git-po-helper init --core XX.po
-```
+- Translatable strings are marked in the source file.
+- Language teams can start translation iterations at any time, even
+ before the l10n window opens:
-After translating the generated "po-core/XX.po", you can merge it to
-"po/XX.po" using the following commands:
+ + Pull from the master branch of the source (1)
+ + Update the message file by running "make po-update PO\_FILE=po/XX.po"
+ + Translate the message file "po/XX.po"
-```shell
-msgcat po-core/XX.po po/XX.po -s -o /tmp/XX.po
-mv /tmp/XX.po po/XX.po
-git-po-helper update XX.po
-```
+- The L10n coordinator pulls from source and announces the l10n window
+ open (2)
+- Language team pulls from the l10n coordinator, starts another
+ translation iteration against the l10n coordinator's tree (3)
-Edit "po/XX.po" by hand to fix "fuzzy" messages, which may have misplaced
-translated messages and duplicate messages.
+ + Run "git pull --rebase" from the l10n coordinator
+ + Update the message file by running "make po-update PO\_FILE=po/XX.po"
+ + Translate the message file "po/XX.po"
+ + Squash trivial l10n git commits using "git rebase -i"
+- Language team sends pull request to the l10n coordinator (4)
+- L10n coordinator checks and merges
+- L10n coordinator asks the result to be pulled (5).
-## Translation Process Flow
-The overall data-flow looks like this:
+## Dynamically generated POT files
- +-------------------+ +------------------+
- | Git source code | ---(1)---> | L10n coordinator |
- | repository | <---(4)--- | repository |
- +-------------------+ +------------------+
- | ^
- (2) (3)
- V |
- +------------------+
- | Language Team XX |
- +------------------+
+POT files are templates for l10n contributors to create or update their
+translation files. We used to have the "po/git.pot" file which was
+generated by the l10n coordinator, but this file had been removed from
+the tree.
-- Translatable strings are marked in the source file.
-- L10n coordinator pulls from the source (1)
-- L10n coordinator updates the message template "po/git.pot"
-- Language team pulls from L10n coordinator (2)
-- Language team updates the message file "po/XX.po"
-- L10n coordinator pulls from Language team (3)
-- L10n coordinator asks the result to be pulled (4).
+The two POT files "po/git.pot" and "po/git-core.pot" can be created
+dynamically when necessary.
+L10n contributors use "po/git.pot" to prepare translations for their
+languages, but they are not expected to modify it. The "po/git.pot" file
+can be generated manually with the following command:
-## Maintaining the "po/git.pot" file
+```shell
+make po/git.pot
+```
-(This is done by the l10n coordinator).
+The "po/git-core.pot" file is the template for core translations. A core
+translation is the minimum set of work necessary to complete a
+translation of a new language. Since there are more than 5000 messages
+in the full set of template message file "po/git.pot" that need to be
+translated, this is not a piece of cake for new language contributors.
-The "po/git.pot" file contains a message catalog extracted from Git's
-sources. The l10n coordinator maintains it by adding new translations with
-msginit(1), or update existing ones with msgmerge(1). In order to update
-the Git sources to extract the messages from, the l10n coordinator is
-expected to pull from the main git repository at strategic point in
-history (e.g. when a major release and release candidates are tagged),
-and then run "make pot" at the top-level directory.
+The "core" template file "po/git-core.pot" can be generated manually
+by running:
-Language contributors use this file to prepare translations for their
-language, but they are not expected to modify it.
+```shell
+make po/git-core.pot
+```
## Initializing a "XX.po" file
you add a translation for the first time by running:
```shell
-msginit --locale=XX
+make po-init PO_FILE=po/XX.po
```
-in the "po/" directory, where XX is the locale, e.g. "de", "is", "pt\_BR",
-"zh\_CN", etc.
-
-Then edit the automatically generated copyright info in your new "XX.po"
-to be correct, e.g. for Icelandic:
-
-```diff
-@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
--# Icelandic translations for PACKAGE package.
--# Copyright (C) 2010 THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER
--# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
-+# Icelandic translations for Git.
-+# Copyright (C) 2010 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
-+# This file is distributed under the same license as the Git package.
- # Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>, 2010.
-```
-
-And change references to PACKAGE VERSION in the PO Header Entry to
-just "Git":
+where XX is the locale, e.g. "de", "is", "pt\_BR", "zh\_CN", etc.
-```shell
-perl -pi -e 's/(?<="Project-Id-Version: )PACKAGE VERSION/Git/' XX.po
-```
+The newly generated message file "po/XX.po" is based on the core pot
+file "po/git-core.pot", so it contains only a minimal set of messages
+and it's a good start for a new language contribution.
Once you are done testing the translation (see below), commit the result
and ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
If you are replacing translation strings in an existing "XX.po" file to
improve the translation, just edit the file.
-If there's an existing "XX.po" file for your language, but the repository
-of the l10n coordinator has newer "po/git.pot" file, you would need to first
-pull from the l10n coordinator (see the beginning of this document for its
-URL), and then update the existing translation by running:
+If you want to find new translatable strings in source files of upstream
+repository and propagate them to your "po/XX.po", run command:
```shell
-msgmerge --add-location --backup=off -U XX.po git.pot
+make po-update PO_FILE=po/XX.po
```
-in the "po/" directory, where "XX.po" is the file you want to update.
+It will:
-Once you are done testing the translation (see below), commit the result
-and ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
+- Call "make po/git.pot" to generate new "po/git.pot" file
+- Call "msgmerge --add-location --backup=off -U po/XX.po po/git.pot"
+ to update your "po/XX.po"
+- The "--add-location" option for msgmerge will add location lines,
+ and these location lines will help translation tools to locate
+ translation context easily.
+
+Once you are done testing the translation (see below), it's better
+to commit a location-less "po/XX.po" file to save repository space
+and make a user-friendly patch for review.
+
+To save a location-less "po/XX.po" automatically in repository, you
+can:
+
+First define a new attribute for "po/XX.po" by appending the following
+line in ".git/info/attributes":
+
+```
+/po/XX.po filter=gettext-no-location
+```
+
+Then define the driver for the "gettext-no-location" clean filter to
+strip out both filenames and locations from the contents as follows:
+
+```shell
+git config --global filter.gettext-no-location.clean \
+ "msgcat --no-location -"
+```
+
+For users who have gettext version 0.20 or higher, it is also possible
+to define a clean filter to preserve filenames but not locations:
+
+```shell
+git config --global filter.gettext-no-location.clean \
+ "msgcat --add-location=file -"
+```
+
+You're now ready to ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
## Fuzzy translation
messages that deviate from the originals in whether they begin/end
with a newline or not.
+L10n coordinator will check your contributions using a helper program
+(see "PO helper" section below):
+
+```shell
+git-po-helper check-po po/XX.po
+git-po-helper check-commits <rev-list-opts>
+```
+
## Marking strings for translation
To build and install the helper program from source, see
[git-po-helper/README][].
-Usage for git-po-helper:
-
-- To start a new language translation:
-
- ```shell
- git-po-helper init XX.po
- ```
-
-- To update your "XX.po" file:
-
- ```shell
- git-po-helper update XX.po
- ```
-
-- To check commit log and syntax of "XX.po":
-
- ```shell
- git-po-helper check-po XX.po
- git-po-helper check-commits
- ```
-
-Run "git-po-helper" without arguments to show usage.
-
## Conventions
- Initialize proper filename of the "XX.po" file conforming to
iso-639 and iso-3166.
-- Must complete a minimal translation based on the "po-core/core.pot"
- template. Using the following command to initialize the minimal
- "po-core/XX.po" file:
-
- ```shell
- git-po-helper init --core <your-language>
- ```
+- Must complete a minimal translation based on the "Core
+ translation". See that section above.
- Add a new entry in the "po/TEAMS" file with proper format, and check
the syntax of "po/TEAMS" by running the following command:
projects / thirdparty / git.git / commitdiff
