Discussion: How To Send Back Language Dependent Error Mesages

X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4 Version 2 (``XPG4.2'')

If you use XPG (X/Open standard),

catgets(catd, set_id, msg_id, char *s);

function converts the message specified by LOCALE_XXX. [1] For example, the usage is as follows:

printf(catgets(catd, 30,  4,  "%s: Internal match error.\n"), progname);

This function uses set 30 and entry 4 in the local definition file such as /usr/pkg/share/nls/ja_JP.EUC/PROGNAME.cat.

fml8: Design (Temporary ?)

One problem is whether we should use locale or not ? In considering CUI e.g. makefml, it is better to use locale. For example, prepare

/usr/local/lib/fml/$fml_version/messages/ja_JP.EUC/kern

1: %s not found
2: %s (error number = %d)

.

Instead, one file for one message may be useful. Especially it is easy we can customize only one message.

To try the latter case, we can prepare a lot of classes such as

FML::Message::ja::KEYWORD

For example, there are 200 or 300 files such as

FML::Message::ja::not_found

.

This methods has the following problems:

• separete files but in contrast more customizable.

• locale friendly? may be no.

Consider an example. In the latter case, the message module will be like this?

sub not_found
{
   my ..  = @_;

   return <<"_EOF_"
$sender is ... something ...
_EOF_
}

Hmm, is it good ???