[translations] Empty Strings

[Martin Stadler]

> IMHO you should never import contrib translations in "override" mode.
I try to avoid it, too, but wouldn't that mean you can't update any  
contrib module's translation ever? That doesn't appear acceptable to  
me...

> The autoimport feature built into Drupal 6 also always imports in  
> "keep"
> mode, but it still does delete stuff in your database if you  
> "override"
> it with an empty string. I am not sure overriding with an empty string
> is a good idea, and with Drupal 6, it also means deletion of the
> database entry.
Is there any reason why empty strings can override existing strings?  
I can imagine the rare case that I decide to not translate a certain  
string in a later version of my translation and want to update my old  
one. In this special case I could translate this string just with the  
English original to avoid conflicts.
How can I maintain a translation file (.po)? There will be empty  
string until the translation is perfect which is not a usual case in  
an open source community. And still, I wanr people to be able to  
update the translation to the latest version without deleting other's  
translations.

>
> Gabor
>
> Martin Stadler wrote:
>> So empty strings in a .po file override already translated strings if
>> I import them...
>>
>> I know the current system of contrib translation is far from good and
>> people are working on it (d6, SoC...). Anyways, here's my scenario:
>>
>> I started translating some contrib modules I use (into German). Of
>> course I want my work to be commited to the drupal CVS. I read the
>> translations handbook and got used to some gettext tools, merging
>> etc. What I did was extracting a fresh .pot file, merging it with the
>> core de.po into the module's de.po and started translating the still
>> empty strings. Sometimes it's too much work and it seems to be enough
>> to only translate the strings that will be visible to the end-user
>> leaving the rest of the strings empty. After importing and testing I
>> filed issues in the respective projects attaching my de.po files.
>>
>> Now I found out that empty translation strings will override already
>> translated strings in the override mode of the import feature of
>> drupal. As I merged the core .po file with my .pot this is only a
>> problem if the string doesn't exist in core but does in another
>> contrib module with an existing translation which is already
>> imported. I cannot merge all module's translations with the one I'm
>> about to create. So it may happen that I override an existing
>> translation of a contrib module with an empty string of another's
>> module's translation. To me it makes sense to keep empty string in my
>> translation file as I or someone else will propably continue to work
>> on that file. But as these empty strings are soon part of the
>> official stable modules they can override other's translations too.
>> Of course I could import them without overriding existing strings but
>> sometimes I want to update my translation...
>>
>> Is there any solution to this problem? A tool to delete the empty
>> strings as a workaround? What kind of .po files should I commit in
>> the future?
>>
>> Sorry for the long text and repetitions...
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Standart