From kde-i18n-doc  Mon Apr 02 17:01:05 2001
From: Stephan Kulow <coolo () kde ! org>
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 17:01:05 +0000
To: kde-i18n-doc
Subject: plural handling
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-i18n-doc&m=98623103801458

Hi!
 
OK, this is from the manual of gettext 0.10.36. What I'd like to know if
someone knows about a different way to handle plurals or if your language
isn't listed below.
 
I played around and I think we should stay with gettext 0.10.35 + a patch
on my own for xgettext (let's call this kgettext :). My older patch doesn't
apply to gettext 0.10.36 anyway. So we're stuck to the solution I posted
yesterday.
 
So I will implement this plural handling and hope it will please at least
the slavic languages. For this you will have to indicate if a message isn't
marked up for plural handling in the sources (just as the context, it won't
happen automaticly).
 
Let me know.
 
Greetings, Stephan
 
Only one form:
     Some languages only require one single form.  There is no
     distinction between the singular and plural form.  An appropriate
     header entry would look like this:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=1; plural=0;
 
     Languages with this property include:
 
    Finno-Ugric family
          Hungarian
 
    Asian family
          Japanese
 
    Turkic/Altaic family
          Turkish
Two forms, singular used for one only
     This is the form used in most existing programs since it is what
     English is using.  A header entry would look like this:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n != 1;
 
     (Note: this uses the feature of C expressions that boolean
     expressions have to value zero or one.)
 
     Languages with this property include:
 
    Germanic family
          Danish, Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish
 
    Finno-Ugric family
          Finnish
 
    Latin/Greek family
          Greek
 
    Semitic family
          Hebrew
 
    Romanic family
          Italian, Spanish
 
    Artificial
          Esperanto
 
Two forms, singular used for zero and one
     Exceptional case in the language family.  The header entry would
     be:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n>1;
 
     Languages with this property include:
 
    Romanic family
          French
 
Three forms, special cases for one and two
     The header entry would be:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n==1 ? 0 : n==2 ? 1 : 2;
 
     Languages with this property include:
    Celtic
          Gaeilge
 
Three forms, special case for one and all numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4
     The header entry would look like this:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
                        plural=n==1 ? 0 : n%10>=2 && n%10<=4 ? 1 : 2;
 
     Languages with this property include:
 
    Slavic family
          Russian
 
Three forms, special case for one and some numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4
     The header entry would look like this:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
              plural=n==1 ? 0 : \
                     n%10>=2 && n%10<=4 && (n%100<10 || n%100>=20) ? 1 : 2;
 
     (Continuation in the next line is possible.)
 
     Languages with this property include:
 
    Slavic family
          Polish
 
Four forms, special case for one and all numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4
     The header entry would look like this:
 
          Plural-Forms: nplurals=4; \
                        plural=n==1 ? 0 : \
                               n%10==2 ? 1 : n%10==3 || n%10==4 ? 2 : 3;
 
     Languages with this property include:
 
    Slavic family
          Slovenian

-- 
Teigwaren heissen Teigwaren, weil sie Teig waren * J. v. d. Lippe
MFCH