internationalising shell scripts

We have a couple of places in GPE where shell scripts interact with the
user, typically via gpe-question. In particular, gpe-logout and the
session scripts both do this. At present, there isn't any support for
internationalising these messages, which is a shame since the
session-scripts one is the first thing you see when logging in
initially.

Bash supports the $"some text" syntax for i18n, where "some text" is
looked up in the message catalog, analogous to _("some text") in C. I
don't think that busybox's shell includes this facility, which as far as
I can tell is a GNU extension, but perhaps the maintainers could be
persuaded to add it.

Alternatively, one can invoke GNU gettext directly, as in gettext -s
"some text". Packaging the gettext binary should not be a big deal,
since it's only about 8k. But, it seems that mechanically generating
.pot files using this method could become a problem.

So, I'm not quite sure what the best way to go forward is. Any
thoughts?

p.
Received on Fri Feb 21 2003 - 00:47:13 EST