Re: Jive -> Kernel (International Linux)

Mike Bristow (mike@shivan.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 16 Jan 1997 13:15:06 +0000 (GMT)

On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Adam D. Bradley wrote:
[snip - international kernel messages are good]
> This isn't a bad idea, really. We could do it as a compile thing, or
> maybe even at run-time with modules...(hmm)...
>
> For compiled-in language support:
>
> In each directory, create a file "printk_strings.h" like this:
>
> #ifndef LINUX_LANGUAGE
> #define LINUX_LANGUAGE_ENGLISH
> #endif
> #ifdef LINUX_LANGUAGE_ENGLISH
> #define FD_DISK_CHANGE_DETECTED "Disk Change Detected"
> #define FD_DISK_SCREWED "Your Disk is Screwed"
> /* etc etc etc */
> #elifdef LINUX_LANGUAGE_JIVE
> #define FD_DISK_CHANGE_DETECTED "Yo dis be diff'd"
> #define FD_DISK_SCREWED "Yo disk be like yo mama!"
> /* etc etc etc */
> #endif
>

But that would require that all possible kernel messages are available in
every language. It would probably be better to have a automagically
created message database that could default a given message to English if
it's not available in Timbucktooise.

IE a program that is run at compile time that would create prink_strings.h
like this:

#define FD_DISK_CHANGE_DETECTED "Yo dis be diff'd"
#define FD_DISK_SCREWED "Your disk is screwed" /* noone has translated
that message yet */

> To get more clever, we could do it at run-time. Have a universal "text
> constants heap" somewhere in the kernel/ directory, say a new file
> called "language.c":
>
[snip details]

I don't know how much kernel bloat that'd cause, but I think that
defaulting to English in the absence of a translation for a given string
might be harder to do well.

--
Mike Bristow: 			mike@shivan.demon.co.uk   
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