dpkg/po/README.translators

Translators, when adding/updating your translation files, please follow
the following guidelines:

* Update po/ChangeLog and debian/changelog:

  * beware the you should NOT update the main ChangeLog file
    for translation updates. Use po/ChangeLog instead

  * The format of entries in po/ChangeLog is strict:

==========================================================
2006-02-11  Christian Perrier  <bubulle@debian.org>

	* fr.po: Updated to 1011t.
==========================================================

Note the date format AND the DOUBLE SPACE between the date end the translator's
email address

Note also the TAB character before the entry. NOT multiple spaces

Also note that the update should mention the file statistics as 
XXXtYYYfZZZu

 -  "XXXt" means "XXX translated strings"
 -  "YYYf" means "YYY fuzzy strings strings"
 -  "ZZZt" means "ZZZ translated strings"

YYY or ZZZ may be omitted if they are null

This file contents MUST be encoded in UTF-8

  * Format of entries in debian/changelog:

Translation updates should go in a dedicated "[Updated translations]"
section:

dpkg (1.13.15) unstable; urgency=low

  .../...

  [ Updated Translations ]
  * Catalan (Jordi Mallach).
  * Portuguese (Miguel Figueiredo).
  * Swedish (Daniel Nylander).


New translations should go in a dedicated section named "[New translations]":

  
dpkg (1.13.15) unstable; urgency=low

  .../...

  [ New Translations ]
  * Vogon (Douglas Adams).

This file contents MUST be encoded in UTF-8

* use of po/LINGUAS:

When ADDING a new translation, don't forget adding the language to po/LINGUAS, otherwise it will not be used.


* always CHECK your translations

You MUST check your PO files for validity.

The correct syntax for doing so is:

msgmerge -U <file> dpkg.pot
msgfmt -c -o /dev/null --statistics <file>
msgcat <file> >/dev/null

-msgmerge updates your file with the current POT file
-msgfmt checks it for validity
-msgcat may  detect encoding problems