[Xfce-i18n] printf and argument order

[Jasper Huijsmans]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 10:29:35AM +0300, Peeter Vois wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I did read printf manual page of glibc and it describes how to use
> different order of arguments in message than programmed. For example:
> 
> n=10;
> i=2;
> printf( " %d apples from %d are bad\n", i, n );
> => 2 apples from 10 are bad
> 
> and it will be possible to translate it like this:
> 
> printf( " from %2$d apples only %1$d are bad\n", i, n );
> => from 10 apples only 2 are bad
> 
> So, in the translation there are arguments swapped.
> 
> Will it be a problem in some today used systems (man page describes that
> C99 does not support it)? Or, will it be a problem if such a trick is
> used in translations?
> 

A very good question. I have no idea actually. It's quite fundamental to
translations that word order can change of course. 

	Jasper