1 | /****************************************************************************
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3 | ** Copyright (C) 2011 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
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24 | ** $QT_END_LICENSE$
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25 | **
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26 | ****************************************************************************/
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27 |
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28 | /*!
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29 | \group i18n
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30 | \title Qt Classes for Internationalization
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31 |
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32 | See \l{Internationalization with Qt} for information on how to use these classes
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33 | in your applications.
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34 | */
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35 |
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36 | /*!
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37 | \page internationalization.html
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38 | \title Internationalization with Qt
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39 | \brief Information about Qt's support for internationalization and multiple languages.
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40 | \nextpage Writing Source Code for Translation
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41 |
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42 | \ingroup qt-basic-concepts
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43 |
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44 | \keyword internationalization
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45 | \keyword i18n
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46 |
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47 | The internationalization of an application is the process of making
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48 | the application usable by people in countries other than one's own.
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49 |
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50 | \tableofcontents
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51 |
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52 | \section1 Relevant Qt Classes and APIs
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53 |
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54 | These classes support internationalizing of Qt applications.
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55 |
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56 | \annotatedlist i18n
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57 |
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58 | \section1 Languages and Writing Systems
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59 |
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60 | In some cases internationalization is simple, for example, making a US
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61 | application accessible to Australian or British users may require
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62 | little more than a few spelling corrections. But to make a US
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63 | application usable by Japanese users, or a Korean application usable
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64 | by German users, will require that the software operate not only in
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65 | different languages, but use different input techniques, character
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66 | encodings and presentation conventions.
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67 |
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68 | Qt tries to make internationalization as painless as possible for
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69 | developers. All input widgets and text drawing methods in Qt offer
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70 | built-in support for all supported languages. The built-in font engine
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71 | is capable of correctly and attractively rendering text that contains
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72 | characters from a variety of different writing systems at the same
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73 | time.
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74 |
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75 | Qt supports most languages in use today, in particular:
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76 | \list
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77 | \o All East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese and Korean)
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78 | \o All Western languages (using Latin script)
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79 | \o Arabic
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80 | \o Cyrillic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, etc.)
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81 | \o Greek
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82 | \o Hebrew
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83 | \o Thai and Lao
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84 | \o All scripts in Unicode 5.1 that do not require special processing
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85 | \endlist
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86 |
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87 | On Windows, Unix/X11 with FontConfig (client side font support)
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88 | and Qt for Embedded Linux the following languages are also supported:
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89 | \list
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90 | \o Bengali
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91 | \o Devanagari
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92 | \o Dhivehi (Thaana)
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93 | \o Gujarati
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94 | \o Gurmukhi
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95 | \o Kannada
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96 | \o Khmer
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97 | \o Malayalam
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98 | \o Myanmar
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99 | \o Syriac
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100 | \o Tamil
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101 | \o Telugu
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102 | \o Tibetan
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103 | \o N'Ko
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104 | \endlist
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105 |
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106 | Many of these writing systems exhibit special features:
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107 |
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108 | \list
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109 |
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110 | \o \bold{Special line breaking behavior.} Some of the Asian languages are
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111 | written without spaces between words. Line breaking can occur either
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112 | after every character (with exceptions) as in Chinese, Japanese and
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113 | Korean, or after logical word boundaries as in Thai.
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114 |
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115 | \o \bold{Bidirectional writing.} Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to
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116 | left, except for numbers and embedded English text which is written
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117 | left to right. The exact behavior is defined in the
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118 | \l{http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr9/}{Unicode Technical Annex #9}.
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119 |
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120 | \o \bold{Non-spacing or diacritical marks (accents or umlauts in European
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121 | languages).} Some languages such as Vietnamese make extensive use of
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122 | these marks and some characters can have more than one mark at the
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123 | same time to clarify pronunciation.
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124 |
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125 | \o \bold{Ligatures.} In special contexts, some pairs of characters get
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126 | replaced by a combined glyph forming a ligature. Common examples are
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127 | the fl and fi ligatures used in typesetting US and European books.
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128 |
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129 | \endlist
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130 |
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131 | Qt tries to take care of all the special features listed above. You
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132 | usually don't have to worry about these features so long as you use
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133 | Qt's input widgets (e.g. QLineEdit, QTextEdit, and derived classes)
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134 | and Qt's display widgets (e.g. QLabel).
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135 |
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136 | Support for these writing systems is transparent to the
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137 | programmer and completely encapsulated in \l{rich text
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138 | processing}{Qt's text engine}. This means that you don't need to
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139 | have any knowledge about the writing system used in a particular
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140 | language, except for the following small points:
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141 |
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142 | \list
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143 |
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144 | \o QPainter::drawText(int x, int y, const QString &str) will always
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145 | draw the string with its left edge at the position specified with
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146 | the x, y parameters. This will usually give you left aligned strings.
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147 | Arabic and Hebrew application strings are usually right
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148 | aligned, so for these languages use the version of drawText() that
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149 | takes a QRect since this will align in accordance with the language.
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150 |
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151 | \o When you write your own text input controls, use QTextLayout.
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152 | In some languages (e.g. Arabic or languages from the Indian
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153 | subcontinent), the width and shape of a glyph changes depending on the
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154 | surrounding characters, which QTextLayout takes into account.
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155 | Writing input controls usually requires a certain knowledge of the
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156 | scripts it is going to be used in. Usually the easiest way is to
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157 | subclass QLineEdit or QTextEdit.
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158 |
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159 | \endlist
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160 |
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161 | The following sections give some information on the status of the
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162 | internationalization (i18n) support in Qt. See also the \l{Qt
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163 | Linguist manual}.
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164 |
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165 | \section1 Step by Step
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166 |
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167 | Writing cross-platform international software with Qt is a gentle,
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168 | incremental process. Your software can become internationalized in
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169 | the following stages:
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170 |
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171 | \section2 Use QString for All User-Visible Text
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172 |
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173 | Since QString uses the Unicode 5.1 encoding internally, every
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174 | language in the world can be processed transparently using
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175 | familiar text processing operations. Also, since all Qt functions
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176 | that present text to the user take a QString as a parameter,
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177 | there is no \c{char *} to QString conversion overhead.
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178 |
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179 | Strings that are in "programmer space" (such as QObject names
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180 | and file format texts) need not use QString; the traditional
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181 | \c{char *} or the QByteArray class will suffice.
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182 |
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183 | You're unlikely to notice that you are using Unicode;
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184 | QString, and QChar are just like easier versions of the crude
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185 | \c{const char *} and char from traditional C.
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186 |
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187 | \section2 Use tr() for All Literal Text
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188 |
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189 | Wherever your program uses "quoted text" for text that will
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190 | be presented to the user, ensure that it is processed by the \l
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191 | QCoreApplication::translate() function. Essentially all that is necessary
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192 | to achieve this is to use QObject::tr(). For example, assuming the
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193 | \c LoginWidget is a subclass of QWidget:
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194 |
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195 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 0
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196 |
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197 | This accounts for 99% of the user-visible strings you're likely to
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198 | write.
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199 |
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200 | If the quoted text is not in a member function of a
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201 | QObject subclass, use either the tr() function of an
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202 | appropriate class, or the QCoreApplication::translate() function
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203 | directly:
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204 |
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205 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 1
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206 |
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207 | If you need to have translatable text completely
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208 | outside a function, there are two macros to help: QT_TR_NOOP()
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209 | and QT_TRANSLATE_NOOP(). They merely mark the text for
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210 | extraction by the \c lupdate utility described below.
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211 | The macros expand to just the text (without the context).
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212 |
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213 | Example of QT_TR_NOOP():
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214 |
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215 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 2
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216 |
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217 | Example of QT_TRANSLATE_NOOP():
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218 |
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219 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 3
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220 |
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221 | If you disable the \c{const char *} to QString automatic
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222 | conversion by compiling your software with the macro \c
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223 | QT_NO_CAST_FROM_ASCII defined, you'll be very likely to catch any
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224 | strings you are missing. See QString::fromLatin1() for more
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225 | information. Disabling the conversion can make programming a bit
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226 | cumbersome.
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227 |
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228 | If your source language uses characters outside Latin1, you
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229 | might find QObject::trUtf8() more convenient than
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230 | QObject::tr(), as tr() depends on the
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231 | QTextCodec::codecForTr(), which makes it more fragile than
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232 | QObject::trUtf8().
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233 |
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234 | \section2 Use QKeySequence() for Accelerator Values
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235 |
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236 | Accelerator values such as Ctrl+Q or Alt+F need to be translated
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237 | too. If you hardcode Qt::CTRL + Qt::Key_Q for "quit" in your
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238 | application, translators won't be able to override it. The
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239 | correct idiom is
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240 |
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241 | \snippet examples/mainwindows/application/mainwindow.cpp 20
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242 |
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243 | \section2 Use QString::arg() for Dynamic Text
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244 |
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245 | The QString::arg() functions offer a simple means for substituting
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246 | arguments:
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247 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 4
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248 |
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249 | In some languages the order of arguments may need to change, and this
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250 | can easily be achieved by changing the order of the % arguments. For
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251 | example:
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252 |
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253 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 5
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254 |
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255 | produces the correct output in English and Norwegian:
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256 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 6
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257 |
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258 | \section2 Produce Translations
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259 |
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260 | Once you are using tr() throughout an application, you can start
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261 | producing translations of the user-visible text in your program.
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262 |
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263 | The \l{Qt Linguist manual} provides further information about
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264 | Qt's translation tools, \e{Qt Linguist}, \c lupdate and \c
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265 | lrelease.
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266 |
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267 | Translation of a Qt application is a three-step process:
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268 |
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269 | \list 1
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270 |
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271 | \o Run \c lupdate to extract translatable text from the C++
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272 | source code of the Qt application, resulting in a message file
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273 | for translators (a TS file). The utility recognizes the tr()
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274 | construct and the \c{QT_TR*_NOOP()} macros described above and
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275 | produces TS files (usually one per language).
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276 |
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277 | \o Provide translations for the source texts in the TS file, using
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278 | \e{Qt Linguist}. Since TS files are in XML format, you can also
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279 | edit them by hand.
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280 |
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281 | \o Run \c lrelease to obtain a light-weight message file (a QM
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282 | file) from the TS file, suitable only for end use. Think of the TS
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283 | files as "source files", and QM files as "object files". The
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284 | translator edits the TS files, but the users of your application
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285 | only need the QM files. Both kinds of files are platform and
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286 | locale independent.
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287 |
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288 | \endlist
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289 |
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290 | Typically, you will repeat these steps for every release of your
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291 | application. The \c lupdate utility does its best to reuse the
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292 | translations from previous releases.
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293 |
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294 | Before you run \c lupdate, you should prepare a project file. Here's
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295 | an example project file (\c .pro file):
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296 |
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297 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 7
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298 |
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299 | When you run \c lupdate or \c lrelease, you must give the name of the
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300 | project file as a command-line argument.
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301 |
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302 | In this example, four exotic languages are supported: Danish,
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303 | Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. If you use \l{qmake}, you usually
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304 | don't need an extra project file for \c lupdate; your \c qmake
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305 | project file will work fine once you add the \c TRANSLATIONS
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306 | entry.
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307 |
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308 | In your application, you must \l QTranslator::load() the translation
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309 | files appropriate for the user's language, and install them using \l
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310 | QCoreApplication::installTranslator().
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311 |
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312 | \c linguist, \c lupdate and \c lrelease are installed in the \c bin
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313 | subdirectory of the base directory Qt is installed into. Click Help|Manual
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314 | in \e{Qt Linguist} to access the user's manual; it contains a tutorial
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315 | to get you started.
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316 |
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317 | \target qt-itself
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318 | Qt itself contains over 400 strings that will also need to be
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319 | translated into the languages that you are targeting. You will find
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320 | translation files for French, German and Simplified Chinese in
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321 | \c{$QTDIR/translations}, as well as a template for translating to
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322 | other languages. (This directory also contains some additional
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323 | unsupported translations which may be useful.)
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324 |
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325 | Typically, your application's \c main() function will look like
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326 | this:
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327 |
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328 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 8
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329 |
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330 | Note the use of QLibraryInfo::location() to locate the Qt translations.
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331 | Developers should request the path to the translations at run-time by
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332 | passing QLibraryInfo::TranslationsPath to this function instead of
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333 | using the \c QTDIR environment variable in their applications.
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334 |
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335 | \section2 Support for Encodings
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336 |
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337 | The QTextCodec class and the facilities in QTextStream make it easy to
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338 | support many input and output encodings for your users' data. When an
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339 | application starts, the locale of the machine will determine the 8-bit
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340 | encoding used when dealing with 8-bit data: such as for font
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341 | selection, text display, 8-bit text I/O, and character input.
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342 |
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343 | The application may occasionally require encodings other than the
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344 | default local 8-bit encoding. For example, an application in a
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345 | Cyrillic KOI8-R locale (the de-facto standard locale in Russia) might
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346 | need to output Cyrillic in the ISO 8859-5 encoding. Code for this
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347 | would be:
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348 |
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349 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 9
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350 |
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351 | For converting Unicode to local 8-bit encodings, a shortcut is
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352 | available: the QString::toLocal8Bit() function returns such 8-bit
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353 | data. Another useful shortcut is QString::toUtf8(), which returns
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354 | text in the 8-bit UTF-8 encoding: this perfectly preserves
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355 | Unicode information while looking like plain ASCII if the text is
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356 | wholly ASCII.
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357 |
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358 | For converting the other way, there are the QString::fromUtf8() and
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359 | QString::fromLocal8Bit() convenience functions, or the general code,
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360 | demonstrated by this conversion from ISO 8859-5 Cyrillic to Unicode
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361 | conversion:
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362 |
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363 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 10
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364 |
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365 | Ideally Unicode I/O should be used as this maximizes the portability
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366 | of documents between users around the world, but in reality it is
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367 | useful to support all the appropriate encodings that your users will
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368 | need to process existing documents. In general, Unicode (UTF-16 or
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369 | UTF-8) is best for information transferred between arbitrary people,
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370 | while within a language or national group, a local standard is often
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371 | more appropriate. The most important encoding to support is the one
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372 | returned by QTextCodec::codecForLocale(), as this is the one the user
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373 | is most likely to need for communicating with other people and
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374 | applications (this is the codec used by local8Bit()).
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375 |
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376 | Qt supports most of the more frequently used encodings natively. For a
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377 | complete list of supported encodings see the \l QTextCodec
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378 | documentation.
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379 |
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380 | In some cases and for less frequently used encodings it may be
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381 | necessary to write your own QTextCodec subclass. Depending on the
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382 | urgency, it may be useful to contact Qt's technical support team or
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383 | ask on the \c qt-interest mailing list to see if someone else is
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384 | already working on supporting the encoding.
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385 |
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386 | \keyword localization
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387 |
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388 | \section2 Localize
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389 |
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390 | Localization is the process of adapting to local conventions, for
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391 | example presenting dates and times using the locally preferred
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392 | formats. Such localizations can be accomplished using appropriate tr()
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393 | strings.
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394 |
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395 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 11
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396 |
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397 | In the example, for the US we would leave the translation of
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398 | "AMPM" as it is and thereby use the 12-hour clock branch; but in
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399 | Europe we would translate it as something else and this will make
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400 | the code use the 24-hour clock branch.
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401 |
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402 | For localized numbers use the QLocale class.
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403 |
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404 | Localizing images is not recommended. Choose clear icons that are
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405 | appropriate for all localities, rather than relying on local puns or
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406 | stretched metaphors. The exception is for images of left and right
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407 | pointing arrows which may need to be reversed for Arabic and Hebrew
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408 | locales.
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409 |
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410 | \section1 Dynamic Translation
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411 |
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412 | Some applications, such as Qt Linguist, must be able to support changes
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413 | to the user's language settings while they are still running. To make
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414 | widgets aware of changes to the installed QTranslators, reimplement the
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415 | widget's \l{QWidget::changeEvent()}{changeEvent()} function to check whether
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416 | the event is a \l{QEvent::LanguageChange}{LanguageChange} event, and update
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417 | the text displayed by widgets using the \l{QObject::tr()}{tr()} function
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418 | in the usual way. For example:
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419 |
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420 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 12
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421 |
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422 | All other change events should be passed on by calling the default
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423 | implementation of the function.
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424 |
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425 | The list of installed translators might change in reaction to a
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426 | \l{QEvent::LocaleChange}{LocaleChange} event, or the application might
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427 | provide a user interface that allows the user to change the current
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428 | application language.
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429 |
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430 | The default event handler for QWidget subclasses responds to the
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431 | QEvent::LanguageChange event, and will call this function when necessary.
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432 |
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433 | \l{QEvent::LanguageChange}{LanguageChange} events are posted when a new
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434 | translation is installed using the QCoreApplication::installTranslator()
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435 | function. Additionally, other application components can also force
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436 | widgets to update themselves by posting LanguageChange events to them.
|
---|
437 |
|
---|
438 |
|
---|
439 | \section1 Translating Non-Qt Classes
|
---|
440 |
|
---|
441 | It is sometimes necessary to provide internationalization support for
|
---|
442 | strings used in classes that do not inherit QObject or use the Q_OBJECT
|
---|
443 | macro to enable translation features. Since Qt translates strings at
|
---|
444 | run-time based on the class they are associated with and \c lupdate
|
---|
445 | looks for translatable strings in the source code, non-Qt classes must
|
---|
446 | use mechanisms that also provide this information.
|
---|
447 |
|
---|
448 | One way to do this is to add translation support to a non-Qt class
|
---|
449 | using the Q_DECLARE_TR_FUNCTIONS() macro; for example:
|
---|
450 |
|
---|
451 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/i18n-non-qt-class/myclass.h 0
|
---|
452 | \dots
|
---|
453 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/i18n-non-qt-class/myclass.h 1
|
---|
454 |
|
---|
455 | This provides the class with \l{QObject::}{tr()} functions that can
|
---|
456 | be used to translate strings associated with the class, and makes it
|
---|
457 | possible for \c lupdate to find translatable strings in the source
|
---|
458 | code.
|
---|
459 |
|
---|
460 | Alternatively, the QCoreApplication::translate() function can be called
|
---|
461 | with a specific context, and this will be recognized by \c lupdate and
|
---|
462 | Qt Linguist.
|
---|
463 |
|
---|
464 | \section1 System Support
|
---|
465 |
|
---|
466 | Some of the operating systems and windowing systems that Qt runs on
|
---|
467 | only have limited support for Unicode. The level of support available
|
---|
468 | in the underlying system has some influence on the support that Qt can
|
---|
469 | provide on those platforms, although in general Qt applications need
|
---|
470 | not be too concerned with platform-specific limitations.
|
---|
471 |
|
---|
472 | \section2 Unix/X11
|
---|
473 |
|
---|
474 | \list
|
---|
475 | \o Locale-oriented fonts and input methods. Qt hides these and
|
---|
476 | provides Unicode input and output.
|
---|
477 | \o Filesystem conventions such as
|
---|
478 | \l{http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2279.txt}{UTF-8}
|
---|
479 | are under development in some Unix variants. All Qt file
|
---|
480 | functions allow Unicode, but convert filenames to the local
|
---|
481 | 8-bit encoding, as this is the Unix convention (see
|
---|
482 | QFile::setEncodingFunction() to explore alternative
|
---|
483 | encodings).
|
---|
484 | \o File I/O defaults to the local 8-bit encoding,
|
---|
485 | with Unicode options in QTextStream.
|
---|
486 | \o Many Unix distributions contain only partial support for some locales.
|
---|
487 | For example, if you have a \c /usr/share/locale/ja_JP.EUC directory,
|
---|
488 | this does not necessarily mean you can display Japanese text; you also
|
---|
489 | need JIS encoded fonts (or Unicode fonts), and the
|
---|
490 | \c /usr/share/locale/ja_JP.EUC directory needs to be complete. For
|
---|
491 | best results, use complete locales from your system vendor.
|
---|
492 | \endlist
|
---|
493 |
|
---|
494 | \section2 Windows
|
---|
495 |
|
---|
496 | \list
|
---|
497 | \o Qt provides full Unicode support, including input methods, fonts,
|
---|
498 | clipboard, drag-and-drop and file names.
|
---|
499 | \o File I/O defaults to Latin1, with Unicode options in QTextStream.
|
---|
500 | Note that some Windows programs do not understand big-endian
|
---|
501 | Unicode text files even though that is the order prescribed by
|
---|
502 | the Unicode Standard in the absence of higher-level protocols.
|
---|
503 | \endlist
|
---|
504 |
|
---|
505 | \section2 Mac OS X
|
---|
506 |
|
---|
507 | For details on Mac-specific translation, refer to the Qt/Mac Specific Issues
|
---|
508 | document \l{Qt for Mac OS X - Specific Issues#Translating the Application Menu and Native Dialogs}{here}.
|
---|
509 | */
|
---|
510 |
|
---|
511 | /*!
|
---|
512 | \page i18n-source-translation.html
|
---|
513 | \title Writing Source Code for Translation
|
---|
514 | \ingroup i18n
|
---|
515 | \previouspage Internationalization with Qt
|
---|
516 | \contentspage Internationalization with Qt
|
---|
517 | \nextpage Translation Rules for Plurals
|
---|
518 | \brief How to write source code in a way that makes it possible for user-visible text to be translated.
|
---|
519 |
|
---|
520 | \tableofcontents
|
---|
521 |
|
---|
522 | \section1 The Basics
|
---|
523 |
|
---|
524 | Developers use the \l{QObject::}{tr()} function to obtain translated text
|
---|
525 | for their classes, typically for display purposes. This function is also
|
---|
526 | used to indicate which text strings in an application are translatable.
|
---|
527 |
|
---|
528 | Qt indexes each translatable string by the \e{translation context} it is
|
---|
529 | associated with; this is generally the name of the QObject subclass it is
|
---|
530 | used in.
|
---|
531 |
|
---|
532 | Translation contexts are defined for new QObject-based classes by the use
|
---|
533 | of the Q_OBJECT macro in each new class definition.
|
---|
534 |
|
---|
535 | When tr() is called, it looks up the translatable string using a QTranslator
|
---|
536 | object. For translation to work, one or more of these must have been
|
---|
537 | installed on the application object in the way described in the
|
---|
538 | \l{#Enabling Translation}{Enabling Translation} section below.
|
---|
539 |
|
---|
540 | \section1 Defining a Translation Context
|
---|
541 |
|
---|
542 | The translation context for QObject and each QObject subclass is the
|
---|
543 | class name itself. Developers subclassing QObject must use the
|
---|
544 | Q_OBJECT macro in their class definition to override the translation
|
---|
545 | context. This macro sets the context to the name of the subclass.
|
---|
546 |
|
---|
547 | For example, the following class definition includes the Q_OBJECT macro,
|
---|
548 | implementing a new tr() that uses the \c MainWindow context:
|
---|
549 |
|
---|
550 | \snippet mainwindows/sdi/mainwindow.h class definition with macro
|
---|
551 | \dots
|
---|
552 |
|
---|
553 | If Q_OBJECT is not used in a class definition, the context will be
|
---|
554 | inherited from the base class. For example, since all QObject-based
|
---|
555 | classes in Qt provide a context, a new QWidget subclass defined without
|
---|
556 | a Q_OBJECT macro will use the \c QWidget context if its tr() function
|
---|
557 | is invoked.
|
---|
558 |
|
---|
559 | \section1 Using tr() to Obtain a Translation
|
---|
560 |
|
---|
561 | The following example shows how a translation is obtained for the
|
---|
562 | class shown in the previous section:
|
---|
563 |
|
---|
564 | \snippet mainwindows/sdi/mainwindow.cpp implicit tr context
|
---|
565 | \dots
|
---|
566 |
|
---|
567 | Here, the translation context is \c MainWindow because it is the
|
---|
568 | \c MainWindow::tr() function that is invoked. The text returned
|
---|
569 | by the tr() function is a translation of "&File" obtained from
|
---|
570 | the \c MainWindow context.
|
---|
571 |
|
---|
572 | When Qt's translation tool, \l lupdate, is used to process a set of source
|
---|
573 | files, the text wrapped in tr() calls is stored in a section of the translation
|
---|
574 | file that corresponds to its translation context.
|
---|
575 |
|
---|
576 | In some situations, it is useful to give a translation context explicitly
|
---|
577 | by fully qualifying the call to tr(); for example:
|
---|
578 |
|
---|
579 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/src_corelib_kernel_qobject.cpp explicit tr context
|
---|
580 |
|
---|
581 | This call obtains the translated text for "Page up" from the \c QScrollBar
|
---|
582 | context. Developers can also use the QCoreApplication::translate() function
|
---|
583 | to obtain a translation for a particular translation context.
|
---|
584 |
|
---|
585 | \section1 Translator Comments
|
---|
586 |
|
---|
587 | Developers can include information about each translatable string to
|
---|
588 | help translators with the translation process. These are extracted
|
---|
589 | when \l lupdate is used to process the source files. The recommended
|
---|
590 | way to add comments is to annotate the tr() calls in your code with
|
---|
591 | comments of the form:
|
---|
592 |
|
---|
593 | \tt{//: ...}
|
---|
594 |
|
---|
595 | or
|
---|
596 |
|
---|
597 | \tt{\begincomment: ... \endcomment}
|
---|
598 |
|
---|
599 | Examples:
|
---|
600 |
|
---|
601 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/src_corelib_kernel_qobject.cpp 40
|
---|
602 |
|
---|
603 | In these examples, the comments will be associated with the strings
|
---|
604 | passed to tr() in the context of each call.
|
---|
605 |
|
---|
606 | \section1 Adding Meta-Data to Strings
|
---|
607 |
|
---|
608 | Additional data can be attached to each translatable message. These are
|
---|
609 | extracted when \l lupdate is used to process the source files. The
|
---|
610 | recommended way to add meta-data is to annotate the tr() calls in your code
|
---|
611 | with comments of the form:
|
---|
612 |
|
---|
613 | \tt{//= <id>}
|
---|
614 |
|
---|
615 | This can be used to give the message a unique identifier to support tools
|
---|
616 | which need it.
|
---|
617 |
|
---|
618 | An alternative way to attach meta-data is to use the following syntax:
|
---|
619 |
|
---|
620 | \tt{//~ <field name> <field contents>}
|
---|
621 |
|
---|
622 | This can be used to attach meta-data to the message. The field name should
|
---|
623 | consist of a domain prefix (possibly the conventional file extension of the
|
---|
624 | file format the field is inspired by), a hyphen and the actual field name
|
---|
625 | in underscore-delimited notation. For storage in TS files, the field name
|
---|
626 | together with the prefix "extra-" will form an XML element name. The field
|
---|
627 | contents will be XML-escaped, but otherwise appear verbatim as the
|
---|
628 | element's contents. Any number of unique fields can be added to each
|
---|
629 | message.
|
---|
630 |
|
---|
631 | Example:
|
---|
632 |
|
---|
633 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/src_corelib_kernel_qobject.cpp meta data
|
---|
634 |
|
---|
635 | Meta-data appearing right in front of a magic TRANSLATOR comment applies to
|
---|
636 | the whole TS file.
|
---|
637 |
|
---|
638 | \section1 Disambiguation
|
---|
639 |
|
---|
640 | If the same translatable string is used in different roles within the same
|
---|
641 | translation context, an additional identifying string may be passed in
|
---|
642 | the call to \l{QObject::}{tr()}. This optional disambiguation argument
|
---|
643 | is used to distinguish between otherwise identical strings.
|
---|
644 |
|
---|
645 | Example:
|
---|
646 |
|
---|
647 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/src_corelib_kernel_qobject.cpp 17
|
---|
648 | \dots
|
---|
649 |
|
---|
650 | In Qt 4.4 and earlier, this disambiguation parameter was the preferred
|
---|
651 | way to specify comments to translators.
|
---|
652 |
|
---|
653 | \section1 Character Encodings
|
---|
654 |
|
---|
655 | You can set the encoding for the source text by calling QTextCodec::setCodecForTr().
|
---|
656 | By default, the source text is assumed to be in Latin-1 encoding.
|
---|
657 |
|
---|
658 | \section1 Handling Plurals
|
---|
659 |
|
---|
660 | Some translatable strings contain placeholders for integer values and need
|
---|
661 | to be translated differently depending on the values in use.
|
---|
662 |
|
---|
663 | To help with this problem, developers pass an additional integer argument
|
---|
664 | to the \l{QObject::}{tr()} function, and typically use a special notation
|
---|
665 | for plurals in each translatable string.
|
---|
666 |
|
---|
667 | If this argument is equal or greater than zero, all occurrences of
|
---|
668 | \c %n in the resulting string are replaced with a decimal representation
|
---|
669 | of the value supplied. In addition, the translation used will adapt to the
|
---|
670 | value according to the rules for each language.
|
---|
671 |
|
---|
672 | Example:
|
---|
673 |
|
---|
674 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/src_corelib_kernel_qobject.cpp 18
|
---|
675 |
|
---|
676 | The table below shows what string is returned depending on the
|
---|
677 | active translation:
|
---|
678 |
|
---|
679 | \table
|
---|
680 | \header \o \o{3,1} Active Translation
|
---|
681 | \header \o \a n \o No Translation \o French \o English
|
---|
682 | \row \o 0 \o "0 message(s) saved" \o "0 message sauvegard\unicode{0xE9}" \o "0 message\bold{s} saved"
|
---|
683 | \row \o 1 \o "1 message(s) saved" \o "1 message sauvegard\unicode{0xE9}" \o "1 message saved"
|
---|
684 | \row \o 2 \o "2 message(s) saved" \o "2 message\bold{s} sauvegard\unicode{0xE9}\bold{s}" \o "2 message\bold{s} saved"
|
---|
685 | \row \o 37 \o "37 message(s) saved" \o "37 message\bold{s} sauvegard\unicode{0xE9}\bold{s}" \o "37 message\bold{s} saved"
|
---|
686 | \endtable
|
---|
687 |
|
---|
688 | This idiom is more flexible than the traditional approach; e.g.,
|
---|
689 |
|
---|
690 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/src_corelib_kernel_qobject.cpp 19
|
---|
691 |
|
---|
692 | because it also works with target languages that have several
|
---|
693 | plural forms (e.g., Irish has a special "dual" form that should
|
---|
694 | be used when \c n is 2), and it handles the \e n == 0 case
|
---|
695 | correctly for languages such as French that require the singular.
|
---|
696 | See the \l{Qt Linguist Manual} for details.
|
---|
697 |
|
---|
698 | Instead of \c %n, you can use \c %Ln to produce a localized
|
---|
699 | representation of \a n. The conversion uses the default locale,
|
---|
700 | set using QLocale::setDefault(). (If no default locale was
|
---|
701 | specified, the "C" locale is used.)
|
---|
702 |
|
---|
703 | A summary of the rules used to translate strings containing plurals can be
|
---|
704 | found in the \l{Translation Rules for Plurals} document.
|
---|
705 |
|
---|
706 | \section1 Enabling Translation
|
---|
707 |
|
---|
708 | Typically, your application's \c main() function will look like
|
---|
709 | this:
|
---|
710 |
|
---|
711 | \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_i18n.qdoc 8
|
---|
712 |
|
---|
713 | Note the use of QLibraryInfo::location() to locate the Qt translations.
|
---|
714 | Developers should request the path to the translations at run-time by
|
---|
715 | passing QLibraryInfo::TranslationsPath to this function instead of
|
---|
716 | using the \c QTDIR environment variable in their applications.
|
---|
717 |
|
---|
718 | \section1 Further Reading
|
---|
719 |
|
---|
720 | \l{Qt Linguist Manual}, \l{Hello tr() Example}, \l{Translation Rules for Plurals}
|
---|
721 | */
|
---|
722 |
|
---|
723 | /*!
|
---|
724 | \page i18n-plural-rules.html
|
---|
725 | \title Translation Rules for Plurals
|
---|
726 | \ingroup i18n
|
---|
727 | \previouspage Writing Source Code for Translation
|
---|
728 | \contentspage Internationalization with Qt
|
---|
729 | \brief A summary of the translation rules for plurals produced by Qt's i18n tools.
|
---|
730 |
|
---|
731 | The table below shows the specific rules that are produced by Qt Linguist
|
---|
732 | and \c lrelease for a selection of languages. Cells marked \e otherwise
|
---|
733 | indicate the form used when none of the other rules are appropriate for a
|
---|
734 | specific language.
|
---|
735 |
|
---|
736 | \table 80%
|
---|
737 | \header \o Language \o Rule 1 \o Rule 2 \o Rule 3
|
---|
738 | \row \o English \o \c{n == 1}
|
---|
739 | \o \e{otherwise} \o N/A
|
---|
740 | \row \o French \o \c{n < 2}
|
---|
741 | \o \e{otherwise} \o N/A
|
---|
742 | \row \o Czech \o \c{n % 100 == 1}
|
---|
743 | \o \c{n % 100 >= 2 && n % 100 <= 4}
|
---|
744 | \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
745 | \row \o Irish \o \c{n == 1}
|
---|
746 | \o \c{n == 2} \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
747 | \row \o Latvian \o \c{n % 10 == 1&& n % 100 != 11}
|
---|
748 | \o \c{n != 0} \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
749 | \row \o Lithuanian \o \c{n % 10 == 1&& n % 100 != 11}
|
---|
750 | \o \c{n % 100 != 12 && n % 10 == 2}
|
---|
751 | \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
752 | \row \o Macedonian \o \c{n % 10 == 1}
|
---|
753 | \o \c{n % 10 == 2} \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
754 | \row \o Polish \o \c{n == 1}
|
---|
755 | \o \c{n % 10 >= 2 && n % 10 <= 4
|
---|
756 | && (n % 100 < 10 || n % 100 > 20)}
|
---|
757 | \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
758 | \row \o Romanian \o \c{n == 1}
|
---|
759 | \o \c{n == 0|| (n % 100 >= 1 && n % 100 <= 20)}
|
---|
760 | \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
761 | \row \o Russian \o \c{n % 10 == 1&& n % 100 != 11}
|
---|
762 | \o \c{n % 10 >= 2 && n % 10 <= 4
|
---|
763 | && (n % 100 < 10 || n % 100 > 20)}
|
---|
764 | \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
765 | \row \o Slovak \o \c{n == 1} \o \c{n >= 2 && n <= 4}
|
---|
766 | \o \e{otherwise}
|
---|
767 | \row \o Japanese \o \e{otherwise} \o N/A \o N/A
|
---|
768 | \endtable
|
---|
769 |
|
---|
770 | The rules themselves are not documented and are internal to Qt Linguist and \c lrelease.
|
---|
771 | */
|
---|