binutils request related to translation

[Alan Modra]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 09:36:53AM +0000, Nick Clifton wrote:
> 
> how is the above example not a full sentence ?

In pe.em,

  fprintf (file, _("  --enable-auto-image-base           Automatically choose image base for DLLs\n"));
  fprintf (file, _("                                       unless user specifies one\n"));

should become

  fprintf (file, _("\
  --enable-auto-image-base           Automatically choose image base for DLLs\n\
                                       unless user specifies one\n"));

so that the whole sentence can be translated as a unit, for simplicity if
no other reason.  I suppose you could argue that the translators could
recognise the "Automatically... DLLs" as being part of the full sentence,
and provide the first part of their translated sentence, ie. whatever
fits on the first line, then recognise "unless... one" and provide the
rest of the translation.  But why make their job unnecessarily difficult?
Also consider that either phrase may appear in other split messages,
where the translated phrase depends on context so it's impossible to
provide a correct translation.

Alan