Re: [PATCH 2/2] object-name: make ambiguous object output translatable

On Mon, Oct 04, 2021 at 10:26:10AM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

quoted

quoted

+		/*
+		 * TRANSLATORS: The argument is the list of ambiguous
+		 * objects composed in show_ambiguous_object(). See
+		 * its "TRANSLATORS" comment for details.
+		 */
+		advise(_("The candidates are:\n\n%s"), sb.buf);

Here's where the extra newline.

I understand why the earlier ones were changed for RTL languages. But
this one is always line-oriented. Is the point to help bottom-to-top
languages? I can buy that, though it feels like that would be something
that the terminal would deal with (because even with this, you're still
getting the "error:" line printed separately, for example).

I don't think what this is doing is wrong (at first I wondered about the
"hint:" lines, but because advise() looks for embedded newlines, we're
OK). But if the translation doesn't need to reorder things across lines,
this extra format-into-a-strbuf step doesn't seem necessary. We can just
call advise() directly in show_ambiguous_object(), as before.

If it is necessary, then note that you leak "sb" here.

I'll keep that bit as-is, it's not strictly necessary, but it gives
translators a bit more context.

If it's just for the context, wouldn't this do the same thing:

  /*
   * TRANSLATORS: This is followed by the list of ambiguous
   * objects composed in show_ambiguous_object(). See its
   * "TRANSLATORS" comments for details.
   */
  advise(_("The candidates are:"));
  ...
  if (oid_array_for_each(&collect, show_ambiguous_object, &ds))
     ...

I.e., leave the code as-is, and just add the extra comment. There is no
need for the extra struct or any change of ordering between this
advise() and the others.

I would think it is worthwhile if we are de-lego-ing a message that is
made in chunks, but in this case the we have to construct an opaque "%s"
to represent the individual lines for each object, because we don't know
how many of them there will be.

-Peff

PS In my "something like this" commit message, I indicated that the
   "candidates" message was getting translated, but it actually is
   already translated in the pre-image. So I think we would not need to
   touch that line at all.