Re: [xml-dev] xml:lang how often used?

["Andrew Welch" <andrew.j.welch@gmail.com>]

On 18/10/2007, Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz> wrote:
> Michael Kay wrote:
>
> > Obvious example, not remotely strange or perverse:
> >
> > <dictionary xml:lang="fr">
> >   <term name="Computer">Ordinateur</term>
> >   <term name="Software">Logiciel</term>
> >   <term name="File">Fichier</term>
> > </dictionary>
> >
> > Now one can have an endless debate about whether one should use xml:lang
> > there or some other attribute. Frankly I don't care. I think it misses the
> > point: XML is about syntax, not semantics, and document designers should be
> > free to choose their own tags.

It does seem an odd way of doing it - does anyone really have:

<dictionary xml:lang="en">
 <term name="Computer">Computer</term>
 ...
</dictionary>
<dictionary xml:lang="fr">
 <term name="Computer">Ordinateur</term>
 ...
</dictionary>
<dictionary xml:lang="de">
   ...

...where all of the various languages are included in r the one XML file?

Wouldn't it be a better solution to do it the Java i18n way eg:

<dictionary>
  <term name="Computer"><i18n id="Computer"/></term>

and then a language file for each locale:

xml_en_UK:
  <val id="Computer">Computer</val>

xml_fr_FR:
  <val id="Computer">Ordinateur</val>

etc... so you can distribte the language files to the approriate
translator and avoid all of that duplication in the main XML.

It would be straightforward to automate the whole thing, both the
initial conversion and the preprocessor to swap in the correct values
for a given locale... although, probably, it should be inbuilt into
the parser.


-- 
Andrew Welch
http://andrewjwelch.com
Kernow: http://kernowforsaxon.sf.net/