> Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 12:19:32 +0000 > From: Colin Watson <cjwat...@debian.org> > To: groff@gnu.org > Subject: Re: Translating manpages into several idioms (gettextization) > Message-ID: <z-fn1m3wd3bjz...@riva.ucam.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed > > Are you aware of po4a? It has its problems, but it's the best tool I'm > aware of in this area. > Thank you for your reply, Colin Watson.
Yes, I am aware of the 'po4a' (PO for anything) tool. Unfortunately, 'po4a' does not gettext manpages very well. I tried to gettext the GNU Bash manual page and 'po4a' did fail with no results at all. To be clear, I transcript below a short text from the 'Locale::Po4a::Man(3pm)' manual page: = = = = = Transcription begins = = = = = This module is still very limited, and will always be, because it's not a real nroff interpreter. It would be possible to do a real nroff interpreter, to allow authors to use all the existing macros, or even to define new ones in their pages, but we didn't want to. It would be too difficult, and we thought it wasn't necessary. We do think that if manpages' authors want to see their productions translated, they may have to adapt to ease the work of translators. = = = = = Transcription ends = = = = = So, since 'po4a' 'is not a real nroff interpreter' and since 'po4a' Developers did decided it is not necessary to implement a real nroff interpreter, I did decide to appeal to the Developers of a real [tn]roff interpreter to viabilize proper parsing of man pages and proper output to the Portable Object (PO) format. Since I know nothing about GNU roff macro packages and GNU roff pos processors, I tend to think it is easier to design and implement a pos processor than implement a totally new nroff interpreter. I intend to translate several man pages into Brazilian Portuguese and I think many people could translate them into several languages if the man page format would not be difficult to handle with. I submit it to higher appreciation. Jamenson Espindula
