[ python-Bugs-1697943 ] msgfmt cannot cope with BOM

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Bugs item #1697943, was opened at 2007-04-10 22:58
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by cito
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Category: Demos and Tools
Group: Python 2.5
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Christoph Zwerschke (cito)
Assigned to: Martin v. Löwis (loewis)
Summary: msgfmt cannot cope with BOM

Initial Comment:
If a .po file has a BOM (byte order mark) at the beginning, as is often the case for utf-8 files created on Windows, msgfmt.py complines about a syntax error.

The attached patch fixes this problem.

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>Comment By: Christoph Zwerschke (cito)
Date: 2007-04-12 11:10

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It may well be that GNU gettext also chokes on a BOM, because they aren't
used under Linux. But I think as a Python tool it should be more
Windows-tolerant. The annoying thing is that you get a syntax error, but
everything looks right because the BOM is usually invisible. Such error
messages are really frustrating. Either the BOM should be silently ignored
(as in the patch) or the users should get a friendly error message asking
them to save the file without BOM. If GNU behaves badly to Windows users,
that's not an excuse to do the same. They are already suffering enough
because of their (or their bosses') bad choice of OS ;-)



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Comment By: Martin v. Löwis (loewis)
Date: 2007-04-12 00:13

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It's my code, but I will need to establish first whether it's a bug. That
depends on what the PO specification says, and, if is it silent on the
matter, what GNU gettext does.

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Comment By: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger)
Date: 2007-04-11 18:07

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Martin, is this your code?

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