What's missing from Phobos for Orbit (package manager)

[John Colvin]

On Tuesday, 12 February 2013 at 19:38:56 UTC, qznc wrote:
> On Tuesday, 12 February 2013 at 16:38:54 UTC, FG wrote:
>> On 2013-02-12 15:21, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> string pluralize(string x, int count)
>>> {
>>>   return count > 1 ? x ~ "s" : x;
>>> }
>>
>> You mean: return count != 1 ? x ~ "s" : x;
>> For special cases there could be a third optional argument:
>>
>>    string pluralize(int count, string sng, string pl="") {
>>        return count == 1 ? sng : pl.length ? pl : sng ~ "s";
>>    }
>>    writeln(pluralize(2, "cat"));
>>    writeln(pluralize(2, "radius", "radii"));
>>
>>
>> That's for simple English-only pluralization, before we jump 
>> into translations.
>
> Do not go down that rabbit hole! Just skim over the following 
> links to get an idea how complicated this becomes.
>
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Localization_and_Plurals
> http://doc.qt.digia.com/qq/qq19-plurals.html
>
> I am not sure, if any internationalization stuff should be in 
> std. No matter how you do it, it will be too simple for some 
> and too over-engineered for others.
>
> There will always be multiple solutions on different levels of 
> power and applications have to choose, which suits them best.
>
> My advice: If you find your self wanting that, try to rephrase 
> first.
>
> For example, instead of "there are %d cat(s)" output "number of 
> cats: %d". It will be much easier to internationalize.


Agreed. It's such an enormous problem, even just in English. 
You're much better off creating a special tool that satisfies 
your own needs for the specific set of words that you need 
pluralisin.