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From: William Perry <wmperry@aventail.com>
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Subject: Re: Internationalization
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 07:14:33 -0800
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Per Abrahamsen writes:
>
>
>I hate the whole idea, but if it *must* be done I think there should
>be at least these requirements:
>
>* It must not be Gnus specific.

  Correct.

>* There should be _zero_ overhead for a user of the English version.

  Well, I would rephrase this to be 'zero overhead for a user of the
originating language version'.  If lars all of a sudden decides to only
speak french (even in lisp), then so be it. :)

>* There should be _zero_ new stuff to learn for an English speaking
>  programmer.

  similar rephrasing to point #2.

>I suggested this implementation when someone wanted to make a French
>version of AUC TeX.  It follows all 3 requirements.
>
>;;; trans-fr.el --- French translation of message strings
>
>;;; Code:
>
>(fset 'raw-message (symbol-function 'message))
> 
>(defvar translate-message-alist
>  '(("hello" "bonjour")))
> 
>(defun translate-message (format &rest args)
>  (let ((trans (assoc format translate-message-alist)))
>    (apply 'raw-message (or (nth 1 trans) format) args)))
> 
>(fset 'message (symbol-function 'translate-message))

  You would have to hook more than 'message'.  You would definitely have to
hook error, and possible a few other places.  And any custom format-like
functions would have to be modified by the package author as well.

  I like the gettext() approach, and have been considering something
similar in Emacs-W3 for a while, just haven't gotten around to it.

-bill p.