Re: Problem with desktop file spec not allowing @modifier in locale naming

[Jonathan Blandford <jrb redhat com>]

Christian Rose <menthos@gnome.org> writes:

> This problem with the desktop file spec should be fixed upstream, so
> that conformant parsers can respect the @modifier syntax. So I've cc:d
> xdg-list@freedesktop.org to get some input on the issue.

How about this as a start for a fix to the desktop-entry spec?

Thanks,
-Jonathan

? desktop-entry-spec
? desktop-entry-spec.junk
Index: desktop-entry-spec.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/freedesktop/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -r1.3 desktop-entry-spec.sgml
--- desktop-entry-spec.sgml	24 Aug 2002 20:33:13 -0000	1.3
+++ desktop-entry-spec.sgml	5 Jun 2003 20:50:50 -0000
@@ -116,42 +116,105 @@
   <sect1 id="recognized-keys">
     <title>Recognized desktop entry keys</title>
     <para>
-      Keys may be postfixed by [<replaceable>locale</replaceable>], where <replaceable>locale</replaceable> is the LOCALE type
-      of the entry.  <replaceable>locale</replaceable> must be of the form lang[_COUNTRY][.ENCODING],
-      where either _COUNTRY or .ENCODING may be omitted. If a postfixed key
-      occurs, the same key must be also present without the postfix.
+      Keys may be postfixed by [<replaceable>LOCALE</replaceable>],
+      where <replaceable>LOCALE</replaceable> is the locale type of the
+      entry.  <replaceable>LOCALE</replaceable> must be of the form
+      lang[_COUNTRY][.ENCODING][@MODIFIER], where _COUNTRY, .ENCODING,
+      and @MODIFIER may be omitted. If a postfixed key occurs, the same
+      key must be also present without the postfix.
     </para>
     <para>
       When reading in the desktop entry file, the value of the key is
       selected by matching the current POSIX locale for the LC_MESSAGES
-      category against the <replaceable>locale</replaceable> postfixes of all occurrences of the key,
-      with the .ENCODING part stripped. (The .ENCODING is used when the
-      Encoding key for the desktop entry file is Legacy-Mixed, see
-      <xref linkend="legacy-mixed">.)
+      category against the <replaceable>locale</replaceable> postfixes
+      of all occurrences of the key, with the .ENCODING part stripped.
+      The .ENCODING field is used only when the Encoding key for the
+      desktop entry file is Legacy-Mixed, (see <xref
+      linkend="legacy-mixed">.)
     </para>
     <para>
-      The matching is done as follows: if the current value of
-      LC_MESSAGES is
-      <replaceable>lang</replaceable>_<replaceable>country</replaceable>.<replaceable>encoding</replaceable>@<replaceable>modifier</replaceable>,
-      then, if a key for
-      <replaceable>lang</replaceable>_<replaceable>country</replaceable>
-      is present, it will be used. Otherwise, if a key for
-      <replaceable>lang</replaceable> is present, it will be used. If
-      both of these are missing, the required key without a locale
-      specified is used.  The encoding and modifier from the
-      LC_MESSAGES value are ignored.
+      The matching of is done as follows.  If LC_MESSAGES is of the form
+      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>.<replaceable>ENCODING</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>,
+      then it will match a key of the form
+      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>.
+      If such a key does not exist, it will attempt to match
+      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>
+      followed by
+      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>.
+      Then, a match against <replaceable>LANG</replaceable> by itself
+      will be attempted.  Finally, if no matching key is found the
+      required key without a locale specified is used.  The encoding
+      from the LC_MESSAGES value is ignored when matching.
     </para>
     <para>
+      If LC_MESSAGES does not have a <replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>
+      field, then no key with a modifier will be matched.  Similarly, if
+      LC_MESSAGES does not have a <replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>
+      field, then no key with a country specified will be matched.  If
+      LC_MESSAGES just has a <replaceable>LANG</replaceable> field, then
+      it will do a straight match to a key with a similar value.  The
+      following table lists possible matches of various LC_MESSAGES in
+      the order in which they are matched.  Note that the
+      <replaceable>ENCODING</replaceable> field isn't shown.
+    </para>
+    <table>
+      <title>Locale Matching</title>
+      <tgroup cols=2>
+	<thead>
+	  <row>
+	    <entry>LC_MESSAGES Value</entry>
+	    <entry>Possible Keys in Order of Matching</entry>
+	  </row>
+	</thead>
+	<tbody>
+	  <row>
+	    <entry><replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable></entry>
+	    <entry>
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>,
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>,
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>,
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>,
+	      Default Value
+	    </entry>
+	  </row>
+	  <row>
+	    <entry><replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable></entry>
+	    <entry>
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>_<replaceable>COUNTRY</replaceable>,
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>,
+	      Default Value
+	    </entry>
+	  </row>
+	  <row>
+	    <entry><replaceable>LANG</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable></entry>
+	    <entry>
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>@<replaceable>MODIFIER</replaceable>,
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>,
+	      Default Value
+	    </entry>
+	  </row>
+	  <row>
+	    <entry><replaceable>LANG</replaceable></entry>
+	    <entry>
+	      <replaceable>LANG</replaceable>,
+	      Default Value
+	    </entry>
+	  </row>
+	</tbody>
+      </tgroup>
+    </table>
+    
+    <para>
       For example, if the current value of the LC_MESSAGES category
-      is de_DE, and the desktop file includes:
+      is sr_YU@Latn and the desktop file includes:
     </para>
     <programlisting>
  Name=Foo
- Name[de]=Foo auf Deutsch</programlisting>
+ Name[sr_YU]=...
+ Name[sr@Latn]=...
+ Name[sr]=...</programlisting>
     <para>
-      Then the value used for the name key will be 'Foo auf Deutsch'. However,
-      if a value is specified for Name[de_DE], then that will be used
-      instead.
+      then the value of the Name keyed by "sr_YU" is used.
     </para>
     <para>
       Case is significant.  The keys "Name" and "NAME" are not equivalent.