Re: Improving the ngettext() patch

* Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> [090604 10:22]:
> pg(at)thetdh(dot)com writes:
> >> Russian plural forms for 100, 101, 102 etc. is different, as for 0, 1, 2.
>
> > True. The rule IIRC is that except for 11-14 and for collective numerals, declination follows the last digit.
>
> Wow. So how does anyone represent that in the .po files? AFAICT the
> notation the gettext machinery provides isn't really powerful enough
> for this.

Well, the C/english "template" one includes just the msgid, and
msgid_plural string.

When the russian translators get to it, they make a russion .po which
contains (something like) the following in the msgid "" header:
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n%10==1 && n%100!=11 ? 0 : n%10>=2 && n%10<=4 && (n%100<10 || n%100>=20) ? 1 : 2;\n"

And then they provide msgstr[0], msgstr[1], and msgstr[2] to fill the 3
slots that above plural-forms can use when translationg plural-form
strings.

It's all encapsulated in the gettext tools and libraries, and the C
(non-translated) base just always uses ngetttext(single, plural, n), and
ngettext will (if the compiled catalog has different plural-forms) use
whatever the catalog specifies, or fall back to the simple
n == 1 ? singular : plural
type choice when no translated catalog is available.

a.

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