利用者:Xiaoxiangquan/GoogleSummerOfCode/2011/Internationalization design

Garlic's Design of Internationalization(i18n)

We use GNU Gettext to translate strings. Here is the standard workflow.

GNU Gettext workflow

- Firstly, a programmer writes a piece of code containing strings that he wants them to be translated into end users' local language. The original code is like:

ot->name = "Quit";

To use GNU Gettext, the programmer wrote like this:

/* header for gettext */
#include <libintl.h>
...
ot->name = gettext("Quit");

- Then the programmer ran the command xgettext, which will scan the source files specified, and gather the words in gettext(""). Finally, xgettext will gennerate a .pot file, whose suffix means a PO Template.

- A po is a translation file with items like:

 msgid "Wave"
 msgstr "Vague"

Actually, this is a po for French, generally named fr.po.