Re: Localization and plural rules revisited

[Horst Hoesel]

Hey Ricky,

[snip]

"0 songs" = "No songs";
"1 song" = "1 song";
"2 songs" = "2 songs";
"3 songs" = "3 songs";
"%d songs" = "%d songs"; // 4 or more

n % 10 == 1 && n % 100 != 11 ? 0 : n % 10 >= 2 && n % 10 <=4 &&
    (n % 100 < 10 || n % 100 >= 20) ? 1 : 2

This technical works only for certain languages. Plural rules for Polish, Russian and Arabic get really complex. For example, I've seen the following expression to figure out the rule for Russian (0, 1 or 2): Each key can thus represent a set of specific values (and such values may not represent a continuous range). I could statically put in n keys (where n is the maximum number of plural rules I need).

I don't pretend to know the rules for the languages you mention (I've been involved in some Russian projects, but don't speak the language), but the code snippet 'smells' like it is used for ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ... 11th but 21st, 31st aso.). Ordinals are a completely separate and maybe more complex issue. I still believe (though less firmly now ;) the scheme I sketched is ok for counting items in languages which are included in Mac OS X.

But the problem becomes that each individual rule drastically changes from language to language. Although, there would probably be a separate translator for each language, and instructions could be provided as to what rule each key represents for that specific language.

Cheers,
Horst

If the rules are that complex, I'd go out to the translators and let them lay down the general rules in writing and then have dedicated code and supporting strings for each language. Not that I don't trust translators to get it right (part of my job is actually doing localization, so I'm biased here :), but I'd fear the complexity of maintaining the information in lots of different places. Also once the issue is solved I'd create a small framework/class/whatever to be able to reuse it.

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