Gettext String IDs Considered Harmful

Documentation for gettext at https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/.

Examples of automated format and spell checks and tracking of translations can be found here:

Listed down are the main disadvantages that logical strings are causing. I may have forgotten some more others.

Compiler checks

A wrongly specified format string or a missing argument may produce a warning in normal situations, bogus data or even a runtime crash.

Logical: Bogus warnings + Runtime crash.

printf(_("foo_bar"), 450000000, 'c');

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "value %ld with string %s and %s.\n"

English: Proper build time warnings.

printf(_("value %ld with string %s and %s.\n"), 450000, 'c');
$ gcc -Wall -o foo foo.c
foo.c:6: warning: format '%ld' expects type 'long int', but argument 2 has type 'int'
foo.c:6: warning: format '%s' expects type 'char *', but argument 3 has type 'int'
foo.c:6: warning: too few arguments for format

Translation consistency checks

Some checks can be performed automatically if using the po tools with normal strings.

Logical: No warnings nor errors.

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "this is an integer %d.\n"

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "això és un enter %f %s."

English: Fatal errors.

#, c-format
msgid "this is an integer %d.\n"
msgstr "això és un enter %f %s."

$ msgfmt -c foo.po
foo.po:14: number of format specifications in 'msgid' and 'msgstr' does not match
foo.po:17: `msgid' and `msgstr' entries do not both end with '\n'
msgfmt: found 2 fatal errors

Fuzzy handling

Changes to the original english string do not trigger changes to the translations. Also translations marked "fuzzy" are not displayed to the user as they are obviously wrong and not matching the meaning of the current original text.

Logical: Original.

printf(_("foo_bar"), 4, "baz");

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "This is a string"

Logical: We fix a typo.

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "This is a string."

Logical: Translations do not get noticed. Manual review needed.

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "Això és una cadena de text"

English: Original.

printf(_("This is a string"), 4, "baz");

msgid "This is a string"
msgstr "Això és una cadena de text"

English: We fix a typo. The translation gets "fuzzy".

#, fuzzy
msgid "This is a string."
msgstr "Això és una cadena de text"

English: We fix the translations. No "fuzzy" anymore.

msgid "This is a string."
msgstr "Això és una cadena de text."

Repeated translations of the same strings

No need to repeat translations for the same string. Even more if all translations in the project are collected in a single big po file, repeated translations can be avoided across programs, and not just across different strings in the same program.

Logical: Repeated.

printf(_("foo_bar"));
...
printf(_("bar_quux"));

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "This is a string."

msgid "bar_quux"
msgstr "This is a string."

English: Merged.

printf(_("This is a string."));
...
printf(_("This is a string."));

msgid "This is a string."
msgstr "Això és una cadena de text."

Incremental translations

Fallback to english when no translation. The only problem here is for users who don't understand English, but even then it's more user friendly to display english than some non-sense, and the user can always use a dictionary.

Logical: Printing non-sense.

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr ""

output: foo_bar

English: Printing something meaningful.

msgid "this is a string.\n"
msgstr ""

output: this is a string.

Meaningful output w/o locale. By default, if the user has not choosen a locale (ok, something that in our device should not happen), the messages printed will be meaninful.

Logical: Printing non-sense.

msgid "foo_bar"
msgstr "this is a string.\n"

output: foo_bar

English: Printing something meaningful.

msgid "this is a string.\n"
msgstr "això és una cadena de text.\n"

output: this is a string.