File: gettext.info,  Node: Bug Report Address,  Next: Names,  Prev: Special cases,  Up: Sources

4.9 Letting Users Report Translation Bugs
=========================================

   Code sometimes has bugs, but translations sometimes have bugs too.
The users need to be able to report them.  Reporting translation bugs to
the programmer or maintainer of a package is not very useful, since the
maintainer must never change a translation, except on behalf of the
translator.  Hence the translation bugs must be reported to the
translators.

   Here is a way to organize this so that the maintainer does not need
to forward translation bug reports, nor even keep a list of the
addresses of the translators or their translation teams.

   Every program has a place where is shows the bug report address.  For
GNU programs, it is the code which handles the "-help" option, typically
in a function called "usage".  In this place, instruct the translator to
add her own bug reporting address.  For example, if that code has a
statement

     printf (_("Report bugs to <%s>.\n"), PACKAGE_BUGREPORT);

   you can add some translator instructions like this:

     /* TRANSLATORS: The placeholder indicates the bug-reporting address
        for this package.  Please add _another line_ saying
        "Report translation bugs to <...>\n" with the address for translation
        bugs (typically your translation team's web or email address).  */
     printf (_("Report bugs to <%s>.\n"), PACKAGE_BUGREPORT);

   These will be extracted by ‘xgettext’, leading to a .pot file that
contains this:

     #. TRANSLATORS: The placeholder indicates the bug-reporting address
     #. for this package.  Please add _another line_ saying
     #. "Report translation bugs to <...>\n" with the address for translation
     #. bugs (typically your translation team's web or email address).
     #: src/hello.c:178
     #, c-format
     msgid "Report bugs to <%s>.\n"
     msgstr ""