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SVARLANG.LIB - THE SVARDOS TRANSLATION C LIBRARY
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SvarLANG is a library and tooling for enabling SvarDOS applications to easily
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support multiple languages.
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### PREPARING TRANSLATION FILES ###
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The translation files must be CATS-style text files in the usual format:
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1.1:Hello, World!
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1.2:Help screen
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2.0:Type /? for more options
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The files must be named as EN.TXT, DE.TXT, FR.TXT, etc. Then, they must be
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"compiled" into SvarLANG's binary format using the TLUMACZ tool:
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tlumacz en fr pl (...)
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The first language provided in the command line is the reference language and
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is used both as the default (embedded in the application) language, as well as
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to substitute messages missing in other languages.
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TLUMACZ computes two files:
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* OUT.LNG - the binary file that contains all translations
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* DEFLANG.C - the default translations that will be embedded into the program
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Then, DEFLANG.C must be compiled and linked to your program along with
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SVARLNGx.LIB. From there, you will be able to use the following calls:
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/* loads translations for program PROGNAME, language LANG, in the path NLSPATH.
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* returns 0 on success. */
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int svarlang_load(const char *progname, const char *lang, const char *nlspath);
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/* same as svarlang_load(), but relies on getenv() to pull LANG and NLSPATH. */
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int svarlang_autoload(const char *progname);
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/* Returns a pointer to the string "id". Does not require svalang_load() to be
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* executed, but then it will only return the reference language strings.
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* a string id is the concatenation of the CATS-style identifiers, for example
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* string 1,0 becomes 0x0100, string 2.10 is 0x020A, etc. */
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const char *svarlang_strid(unsigned short id);
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/* a convenience definition to fetch strings by their CATS-style pairs instead
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* of the 16-bit id. */
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#define svarlang_str(x, y) svarlang_strid((x << 8) | y)
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### ENVIRONMENT ###
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All translations files should be placed in the %NLSPATH% directory and should
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be named the same as the program's name, with the LNG extension (for example
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"INSTALL.LNG" if the program is named "INSTALL").
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The %LANG% environment variable defines what language should be loaded.
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### WHY IS IT BETTER THAN CATS? ###
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The CATS library is heavier and slower, as it embeds a text-file parser.
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Translations also take more disk space since each file is in a separate file
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leading to cluster waste. Finally, CATS requires default strings to be part of
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the application's source code, while SvarLANG keeps all strings in TXT files
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and embedds the default one inside the application in an automated way at
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compile time.
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There is also a licensing issue: CATS/Kitten libraries are published under the
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terms of a viral license. SvarLANG, on the other hand, is published under a
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truly free, liberal license (MIT).
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======================================================================= EOF ===
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