Re: libintl: stubs or working functions?

[Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:41:05PM +0100, u-wsnj@aetey.se wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 08:29:41AM +0000, Justin Cormack wrote:
> > On Mar 18, 2015 11:10 PM, <u-wsnj@aetey.se> wrote:
> > > IOW I'd like to always have the canonical errname in the output,
> > > in English too.
> 
> > Would it make sense for the canonical names to be the output in the C
> > locale and English if you set an English locale?
> 
> What I am after is seeing "EXXXXX" as a part of the message with any LANG,
> including English:
> 
> LANG=en:  "No such file or directory (ENOENT)"
> LANG=xx:  "&((/&=(/%&/(&%/(/)(/&/ ENOENT"
>  ...
> 
> It could be nice to have a common convention for all languages
> about the formatting of the error reference, like parentheses
> around the name and/or placing it rightmost, but this is probably
> impossible with some languages.

The issues I'm somewhat concerned with are:

- Does this interfere with proper flow of RTL text? In absence of bidi
  nesting chars, I would think the answer might be yes.

- Does it result in ugly mix of unmatching fonts in UI, possibly even
  alterring line spacing?

Keep in mind that error messages are not necessarily bugs to be
reported upstream but may be informative to users directly. For
example a GUI app could be reporting to the user that they file they
tried to open is not accessible.

Rich