$ msgmerge -U po/af.po po/git-gui.pot
-[NEEDSWORK: who is responsible for updating po/git-gui.pot file by
-running xgettext? IIRC, Christian recommended against running it
-nilly-willy because it can become a source of unnecessary merge
-conflicts. Perhaps we should mention something like "
-
-The po/git-gui.pot file is updated by the internationalization
-coordinator from time to time. You _could_ update it yourself, but
-translators are discouraged from doing so because we would want all
-language teams to be working off of the same version of git-gui.pot.
-
-" here?]
-
This updates po/af.po (again, replace "af" with your language
code) so that it contains msgid lines (i.e. the original) that
your translation did not have before. There are a few things to
- New messages added to the software will have msgstr lines with empty
strings. You would need to translate them.
+
+The po/git-gui.pot file is updated by the internationalization
+coordinator from time to time. You _could_ update it yourself, but
+translators are discouraged from doing so because we would want all
+language teams to be working off of the same version of git-gui.pot.
+
+****************************************************************
+
+This section is a note to the internationalization coordinator, and
+translators do not have to worry about it too much.
+
+The message template file po/git-gui.pot needs to be kept up to date
+relative to the software the translations apply to, and it is the
+responsibility of the internationalization coordinator.
+
+When updating po/git-gui.pot file, however, _never_ run "msgmerge -U
+po/xx.po" for individual language translations, unless you are absolutely
+sure that there is no outstanding work on translation for language xx.
+Doing so will create unnecessary merge conflicts and force needless
+re-translation on translators. The translator however may not have access
+to the msgmerge tool, in which case the coordinator may run it for the
+translator as a service.
+
+But mistakes do happen. Suppose a translation was based on an older
+version X, the POT file was updated at version Y and then msgmerge was run
+at version Z for the language, and the translator sent in a patch based on
+version X:
+
+ ? translated
+ /
+ ---X---Y---Z (master)
+
+The coordinator could recover from such a mistake by first applying the
+patch to X, replace the translated file in Z, and then running msgmerge
+again based on the updated POT file and commit the result. The sequence
+would look like this:
+
+ $ git checkout X
+ $ git am -s xx.patch
+ $ git checkout master
+ $ git checkout HEAD@{1} po/xx.po
+ $ msgmerge -U po/xx.po po/git-gui.pot
+ $ git commit -c HEAD@{1} po/xx.po
+
+State in the message that the translated messages are based on a slightly
+older version, and msgmerge was run to incorporate changes to message
+templates from the updated POT file. The result needs to be further
+translated, but at least the messages that were updated by the patch that
+were not changed by the POT update will survive the process and do not
+need to be re-translated.