On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 01:34:22PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote: > On Tue 2018-07-31 11:11:53, David Howells wrote: > > Pavel Machek <pavel@xxxxxx> wrote: > > > Proposal is "message %s foo %s\0param 1\0param2\0", only strings > > > allowed. > > > > I think that's too strict and you will need to allow integer values, IP > > addresses and possibly other things also. It could certainly have a limited > > set (e.g. no kernel pointers). > > I'd always use strings at kernel->user interface. Yes, we should > support integers and IP addresses in kernel, but I'd convert them to > strings before passing them to userspace. Then you haven't solved the translation problem at all; you've just made the in-kernel implementation harder. One example from the gettext docs: In Polish we use e.g. plik (file) this way: 1 plik 2,3,4 pliki 5-21 plików 22-24 pliki 25-31 plików Your proposal means that userspace needs to detect "%s file", determine if the corresponding string consists of ^[0-9]*$, then parse the string to figure out which of the plik* words is the correct one to use. In my preferred solution of just sending the damned english string, it's no more complex to regex match the string for "[0-9]* file", and choose the appropriate plik* translation.