In progress, see ​http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Development_Specs

Message Standardization

How should Errors/Warnings/Messages be formatted

• Only user derived variables should be bracketed, not GRASS derived variables, for example:

   Yes: Creating raster map <%s>.  Pass 1 of 7 ...
   No:  Creating <raster> map <%s>.  Pass [1] of [7] ...
  

• strings < > - raster, vector maps, group names, etc., e.g.
  • Raster map <%s> not found
• strings ' ' - paths, SQL queries, etc., e.g.
  • File '%s' not found
  • Unable to create table: '%s'

Discussion

• The [bracketed] parenthetical disrupts the flow of the phrase and doesn't help enhance clarity of meaning. IMHO, this reads better without [] brackets: "Line %d deleted." [] Brackets should be used when value is outside of the phrase: "Unknown line [%d]". --HB

Statistics

symbol	number of code lines (2007-04-11)	2008-02-14 (6.3svn)	2009-08-02 (7.0svn)
<%s>	637	1406	1935
[%s]	690	427	222
'%s'	354	370	537
<%d>	12	7	11
[%d]	207	13	137
'%d'	3	1	1

TYPES="<%s> \[%s\] '%s' <%d> \[%d\] '%d'"

for TYPE in $TYPES ; do
  NUM_HITS=`grep -rI "$TYPE" * | grep -v '/.svn/\|^dist.i686-\|locale/po/' | wc -l`
  echo "$TYPE  $NUM_HITS"
done

Macros to be defined for C library

• MSG_RASTER_NOT_FOUND_IN_MAPSET - "Raster map <%s> not found in <%s>"
• MSG_CANNOT_OPEN_RASTER - "Unable to open raster map <%s>"
• MSG_CANNOT_OPEN_FILE - Unable to open file <%s>

Note: Problem with xgettext package. How to use macros to work with xgettext?