just some hours ago I've published a plugin with an awkward bug: it might print "1 votes"
As it might be obvious for most developers to avoid this bug, it might be not so obvious that in many languages there's more than singular and plural: the paucal! (Honestly I'm not sure, if it's called this way in any language, but the principle might be the same -- please correct me, if I'm wrong)This brought me to the following solution. Wherever a language specific string, depending on the numerus, might be used, it could be returned by the following function:
- Code: Select all
/**
* Returns $tx in its correct numerus according to $count.
*
* @param string $plugin The name of the plugin.
* @param string $tx The base name of the language string.
* @param int $count The item's count.
* @return string
*/
function XYZ_numerus($plugin, $tx, $count) {
global $plugin_tx;
$ptx = $plugin_tx[$plugin];
$limit = isset($ptx['paucal_limit']) ? $ptx['paucal_limit'] : 4;
$singular = isset($ptx[$tx.'_singular']) ? $ptx[$tx.'_singular'] : $ptx[$tx];
$paucal = isset($ptx[$tx.'_paucal']) ? $ptx[$tx.'_paucal']
: ($ptx[$tx.'_plural'] ? $ptx[$tx.'_plural'] : $ptx[$tx]);
$plural = isset($ptx[$tx.'_plural']) ? $ptx[$tx.'_plural'] : $ptx[$tx];
if ($count > $limit || $count == 0) {
return $plural;
} elseif ($count > 1) {
return $paucal;
} else {
return $singular;
}
}
It's important, that the XYZ will be replaced by the plugin's name (or some abbreviation), or the routine might be offered by some general utility plugin/addon. The benefits of using this routine: if no singular/paucal/plural is defined, a somewhat reasonable default will be used. So an english speaking developer might ignore the paucal (and even singular/plural forms) -- but the translator is able to introduce the paucal (singular/plural) afterwards. Additionally it's possible to set the upper limit for the paucal in the language file. The drawbacks: a somewhat slight decline of performance.
I'm very interested in your opinion about this function, and it's possible shortcommings (e.g. I'm not sure, if zero occurences use the plural form in all languages).
Christoph
But she can't work with computer 