Core GIT Translations
=====================
-This directory holds the translations for the core of Git. This
-document describes how to add to and maintain these translations, and
-how to mark source strings for translation.
-
+This directory holds the translations for the core of Git. This document
+describes how you can contribute to the effort of enhancing the language
+coverage and maintaining the translation.
+
+The localization (l10n) coordinator, Jiang Xin <worldhello.net@gmail.com>,
+coordinates our localization effort in his repository:
+
+ https://github.com/gotgit/git-po/
+
+As a contributor for a language XX, you would fork this repository,
+prepare and/or update the translated message file po/XX.po (described
+later), and ask the l10n coordinator to pull your work.
+
+If there are multiple contributors for the same language, please first
+coordinate among yourselves and nominate the team leader for your
+language, so that the l10n coordinator only needs to interact with one
+person per language.
+
+For the list of exiting translations and language teams, see TEAMS file in
+this directory.
+
+The overall data-flow looks like this:
+
+ +-------------------+ +------------------+
+ | Git source code | ---(1)---> | L10n coordinator |
+ | repository | <---(4)--- | repository |
+ +-------------------+ +------------------+
+ | ^
+ (2) (3)
+ V |
+ +------------------+
+ | Language Team XX |
+ +------------------+
+
+ * Translatable strings are marked in the source file.
+ * L10n coordinator pulls from the source (1)
+ * L10n coordinator updates the message template po/git.pot
+ * Language team pulls from L10n coordinator (2)
+ * Language team updates the message file po/XX.po
+ * L10n coordinator pulls from Language team (3)
+ * L10n coordinator asks the result to be pulled (4).
+
+
+Maintaining the po/git.pot file
+-------------------------------
-Generating a .pot file
-----------------------
+(This is done by the l10n coordinator).
The po/git.pot file contains a message catalog extracted from Git's
-sources. You need to generate it to add new translations with
-msginit(1), or update existing ones with msgmerge(1).
+sources. The l10n coordinator maintains it by adding new translations with
+msginit(1), or update existing ones with msgmerge(1). In order to update
+the Git sources to extract the messages from, the l10n coordinator is
+expected to pull from the main git repository at strategic point in
+history (e.g. when a major release and release candidates are tagged),
+and then run "make pot" at the top-level directory.
-Since the file can be automatically generated it's not checked into
-git.git. To generate it do, at the top-level:
+Language contributors use this file to prepare translations for their
+language, but they are not expected to modify it.
- make pot
+Initializing a XX.po file
+-------------------------
-Initializing a .po file
------------------------
+(This is done by the language teams).
-To add a new translation first generate git.pot (see above) and then
-in the po/ directory do:
+If your language XX does not have translated message file po/XX.po yet,
+you add a translation for the first time by running:
msginit --locale=XX
-Where XX is your locale, e.g. "is", "de" or "pt_BR".
+in the po/ directory, where XX is the locale, e.g. "de", "is", "pt_BR",
+"zh_CN", etc.
Then edit the automatically generated copyright info in your new XX.po
to be correct, e.g. for Icelandic:
perl -pi -e 's/(?<="Project-Id-Version: )PACKAGE VERSION/Git/' XX.po
+Once you are done testing the translation (see below), commit the result
+and ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
+
+
+Updating a XX.po file
+---------------------
-Updating a .po file
--------------------
+(This is done by the language teams).
-If there's an existing *.po file for your language but you need to
-update the translation you first need to generate git.pot (see above)
-and then in the po/ directory do:
+If you are replacing translation strings in an existing XX.po file to
+improve the translation, just edit the file.
+
+If there's an existing XX.po file for your language, but the repository
+of the l10n coordinator has newer po/git.pot file, you would need to first
+pull from the l10n coordinator (see the beginning of this document for its
+URL), and then update the existing translation by running:
msgmerge --add-location --backup=off -U XX.po git.pot
-Where XX.po is the file you want to update.
+in the po/ directory, where XX.po is the file you want to update.
+
+Once you are done testing the translation (see below), commit the result
+and ask the l10n coordinator to pull from you.
+
Testing your changes
--------------------
+(This is done by the language teams, after creating or updating XX.po file).
+
Before you submit your changes go back to the top-level and do:
make
Marking strings for translation
-------------------------------
+(This is done by the core developers).
+
Before strings can be translated they first have to be marked for
translation.
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