Alex Walker

    alex@x3ja.co.uk

Conversion to British English

# Glossary

A

Auxiliary file

  is a &kbabel; specific issue. It is an option for the user to set up one PO file to search through for original messages. For example, if you're a member of French team and have some Spanish or Italian knowledge you can grab and set-up an auxiliary Spanish PO file associated with the file currently being translated.

C

Compendium file

  is a collection of all translations for one language. This big PO file is made by unique messages from all applications' PO files. It can be used to fill in all already translated strings into a new yet untranslated or partially translated PO file. &kbabel; uses such a file in the PO Compendium search engine.

F

Fuzzy

  This is a flag generated, in general, by `msgmerge`. It shows that a msgstr string might not be a correct translation. The translator must see and make modifications to the string if necessary and then remove the fuzzy flag from the message's comment.

I

Internationalisation
i18n

  is the operation by which an application is made aware and able to support multiple languages. The word internationalisation has 20 characters so, to shorten it, people started to write only the first and last characters and between them write the number of intermediate characters (18) forming the common abbreviation i18n.

L

Localisation
l10n

  is the operation by which an application already internationalised is made to process input and output in a fashion desired by some cultural and language habits. The word localisation has 12 characters so, to shorten it, people started to write only the first and last characters and between them write the number of intermediate characters (10) forming the common abbreviation l10n.

M

MO file
MO

  MO stands for Machine Object. A MO file contains binary data suitable for reading by computers. The contents of a MO file are organised as a database to minimise the lookup time for translated strings. MO files are obtained by compiling PO files using `msgfmt`.

Message ID
msgid

  msgid is the keyword which introduces the original string in a PO file. It is followed by a C-like string that spans one or more lines.

Message String
msgstr

  msgstr is the keyword which introduces the translated string in PO file. It is followed by C-like string that span on one or multiple lines.

P

PO file
PO

  PO stands for Portable Object. PO files contain sets of strings which associate each translatable string with its translation in a particular language. A single PO file relates to only one language. A PO file is derived from a POT file and is edited either by hand or using &kbabel;.

POT file
POT

  POT stands for Portable Object Template. A POT file is built by extracting all the translatable strings from application source files. A POT file does not contain translations into any particular language— it is used by the translators as a template.