From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com>
cc: PostgreSQL Developers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>,
        Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>,
        Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
Subject: Re: Get rid of translation strings that only contain punctuation
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Comments: In-reply-to David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com>
	message dated "Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:29:40 +1200"
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Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2026 20:51:48 -0400
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David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> writes:
> We've got a few parts of the code that translate strings that contain
> only a single punctuation character. I'm not a translator, but I
> suspect that these would be tricky to deal with as such short strings
> could be used for various different things, and if the required
> translation was to differ between requirements, then you're out of
> luck.

Yeah.  I concur with your feeling that a separate translatable string
containing just a punctuation mark is probably the Wrong Thing.  But
just removing the translation marker doesn't fix the problem.  You
need more extensive restructuring so that what needs to be translated
is a coherent message.

We previously discussed the append_tuple_value_detail case [1], and
I opined that the right fix was to change things so that what that
function produces is a string that doesn't need translation because
it matches SQL syntax for a row constructor.  It doesn't look like
that's happened yet.

			regards, tom lane

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/227279.1775956328%40sss.pgh.pa.us