[Python-Dev] string formatting and i18n (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Mon Sep 5 18:47:04 CEST 2005

On Mon, 2005-09-05 at 12:07, Antoine Pitrou wrote:

Uh, what about internationalization (i18n) ? In i18n you can't avoid the need for parameterized strings. For example I want to write : ("The file '%s' is read only") % filename not : ("The file") + " '" + filename + "' " + ("is read only")

because the splitting in the second form will not translate correctly into other languages. You have to supply the whole non-splitted sentence to the translators.

Actually, this was part of the motivation behind PEP 292 and Template strings, because what you really want is named parameters, not positional parameters:

'The file filenameindirectoryfilename in directory filenameindirectorydir is read only'

There are a few techniques for getting full i18n for Template strings.

-Barry

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