Re: Jive -> Kernel (International Linux)
Jason Mcmullan (jmcc@m5.vi.ri.cmu.edu)
Tue, 21 Jan 1997 10:45:03 -0500 (EST)
'bofh@snoopy.virtual.net.au wrote with particular insight...'
> Jmcc@cs.cmu.edu was known to have stated:
> > I've been following this discussion, and it seems that the best approach
> >would be to have a new interface to klogd, that puts out '[nn]' prefixed
> >strings, followed by a default english interpretation. This way all
> >translating lookup can be done in user space...
>
> So you are suggesting having the kernel output both English error messages
> (suitable for straight dumping to /dev/console) and codes that klogd could use
> to load up strings in language files? I think that this idea would work.
> Klogd could then either pass on English strings or interpret the codes to
> another language, or it could just store the symbolic information to allow a
> log viewing program to view the logs in any language.
>
Yes, and the beauty of this is that
a) All existing klogd/syslogd implementations will
still work (and output readable info)
b) We can work on internationization incrementally
(driver by driver, filesystem by filesystem...)
c) We'll have an easy-to-parse stream to place
in error-logging databases
The 'virtue of least surprise' would be preserved -
users would _still_ get the messages they expect if
they're using the old klogd/syslogd stuff, and we (the
kernel developers) don't have to do massive re-writes
of existing code..
--
Jason McMullan - Research Programmer, Robotics Institute, CMU
Me: http://www.ul.cs.cmu.edu/~jmcc
Linux GGI: http://synergy.caltech.edu/~ggi