n00b question on spacing

[MRAB]

On 23/06/2013 00:56, Dave Angel wrote:
> On 06/22/2013 07:37 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 9:28 AM, Dave Angel <davea at davea.name> wrote:
>>> On 06/22/2013 07:12 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 1:24 AM, Rick Johnson
>>>> <rantingrickjohnson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>     _fmtstr = "Item wrote to MongoDB database {0}, {1}"
>>>>>     msg = _fmtstr.format(_arg1, _arg2)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As a general rule, I don't like separating format strings and their
>>>> arguments. That's one of the more annoying costs of i18n. Keep them in
>>>> a single expression if you possibly can.
>>>>
>>>
>>> On the contrary, i18n should be done with config files.  The format string
>
> **as specified in the physical program**
>
>>> is the key to the actual string which is located in the file/dict.
>>> Otherwise you're shipping separate source files for each language -- blecch.
>
> What I was trying to say is that the programmereze format string in the
> code is replaced at runtime by the French format string in the config file.
>
>>
>> The simplest way to translate is to localize the format string; that's
>> the point of .format()'s named argument system (since it lets you
>> localize in a way that reorders the placeholders). What that does is
>> it puts the format string away in a config file, while the replaceable
>> parts are here in the source. That's why I say that's a cost of i18n -
>> it's a penalty that has to be paid in order to move text strings away.
>
>
>
> Certainly the reorderability of the format string is significant.  Not
> only can it be reordered, but more than one instance of some of the
> values is permissible if needed.  (What's missing is a decent handling
> of such things as singular/plural, where you want a different version
> per country of one (or a few) words from the format string, based on
> whether a value is exactly 1.)
>
[snip]
One vs not-one isn't good enough. Some languages use the singular with
any numbers ending in '1'. Some languages have singular, dual, and
plural. Etc. It's surprising how inventive people can be! :-)