Comparison table with GNU gettext

[robert-j-engdahl]

Comparison table with GNU gettext

[robert-j-engdahl]

For example

Do you want to delete {N_PLURAL:this {N} file|these {N} files} permanently?

would be written as

printf(
    ngettext(
        "Do you want to delete this %d file permanently?",
        "Do you want to delete these %d files permanently?", 
        N), 
    N);

in traditional GNU gettext.

[iafan]

Great question! Here are some points to consider:

1. As you can see in your own example, gettext is quite explicit: all plural choices are stored as separate full strings. This might be easier to translate in certain cases (where strings are short and simple), but is very inflexible. You can't have two different plural-based choices in the same string, i.e. "Do you want to delete N file(s) in M folder(s) permanently?" is something that can be easily expressed in Plurr, but not in ngettext().
2. ngettext() expects you to have your source in a language that only has two plural forms (the function in e.g. C is declared as ngettext (const char *msgid1, const char *msgid2, unsigned long int n). So you can't really use it in a source language that has more plural forms.
3. gettext is all about extracting strings from the source and using them with .po files as a part of gettext suite. Plurr is file format-agnostic (you can use Plurr-formatted strings in any platform with any resource file types), and most importantly, it guarantees the same 1:1 string mapping in resource files (i.e. there's no need to use resource file formats that have native support for plurals).
4. Plurr can handle not only plural-based choices, but all arbitrary choices. For example, you can create a strings for different genders, or do special cases for N=0,1,2,...
5. Plurr is a really tiny library, as compared to the gettext suite of libraries and tools. In some cases, it might be a very compelling reason of its own.
6. in addition to ngettext() you need some formatting function to actually put placeholders in place (in your example, printf()). sprintf()-style placeholders are really bad for localization purposes (for example, you can't swap two %s placeholders). So you still need something different for proper localization. Plurr solves that problem as well, offering named placeholders that provide more context and can be reordered in the translation as needed.

[iafan]

Closing due to inactivity. I believe the question has been answered.