NAME

translate − translation dictionary

SYNOPSIS

/locale/dict/app
/locale/locale/dict/app

DESCRIPTION

A dictionary file provides translation text that applications can access using translate(2). Each is a Unicode file containing a set of translations, one per line, each line having the following syntax:

"source-text" [ (note-text) ] [ ="target-text" ]

which defines ­target-text as the translation for ­source-text .  A missing translation clause defines the identity translation.  The optional ­note-text qualifies the context of the source-text, when the same phrase in the source language might translate to different phrases in the target language, or to distinguish a particular context in the program (eg, particular menus): For example:

"Times"(newspaper) = "La Republicca"
"Times"(timetable) = "L’orario"
"ABC"(keypad) = "abc"

Empty lines and lines beginning with ­# are ignored.  The quoted strings can contain the Limbo escape sequences ­\n (newline), ­\t (tab), ­\r (carriage return), and ­\\ (backslash). 

The default locale is set by binding one or more specific locales onto /locale/dict. 

FILES

­/locale/dict/∗/∗

BUGS

The convention for naming dictionaries needs adjustment. 

Plan 9  —  May 30, 2000