[Python-Dev] Re: gettext in the standard library

2000年8月18日 17:49:23 -0400 (EDT)

>>>>> "M" == M <mal@lemburg.com> writes:

 M> I know that gettext is a standard, but from a technology POV I
 M> would have implemented this as codec wich can then be plugged
 M> wherever l10n is needed, since strings have the new .encode()
 M> method which could just as well be used to convert not only the
 M> string into a different encoding, but also a different
 M> language. Anyway, just a thought...
That might be cool to play with, but I haven't done anything with
Python's Unicode stuff (and painfully little with gettext too) so
right now I don't see how they'd fit together. My gut reaction is
that gettext could be the lower level interface to
string.encode(language).
 M> What I'm missing in your doc-string is a reference as to how
 M> well gettext works together with Unicode. After all, i18n is
 M> among other things about international character sets.
 M> Have you done any experiments in this area ?
No, but I've thought about it, and I don't think the answer is good.
The GNU gettext functions take and return char*'s, which probably
isn't very compatible with Unicode. _gettext therefore takes and
returns PyStringObjects.
We could do better with the pure-Python implementation, and that might
be a good reason to forgo any performance gains or platform-dependent
benefits you'd get with _gettext. Of course the trick is using the
Unicode-unaware tools to build .mo files containing Unicode strings.
I don't track GNU gettext developement close enough to know whether
they are addressing Unicode issues or not.
-Barry