[bind10-dev] Topics for BIND 10 call tomorrow (2011-06-21)

[Stephen Morris]

A bit detailed, but a couple of cosmetic issues that may be worth
addressing the next release (which formally includes logging):

1) Message names: all our messages have a unique identification that
will allow us to determine what the message is, even if the text has
been translated into another language.

We have two styles of message names: words joined by underscores (e.g.
DATASRC_CACHE_REMOVE) and word abbreviations concatenated together (e.g.
RESOLVER_QUSETUP).  Ideally we should decide which style we want to use
and adopt it consistently.

2) Message files allow a $PREFIX directive to provide a string that is
prepended to all messages names in the file.  The original idea was that
it provided a prefix added to the message symbols in a program, but that
the messages logged would omit the prefix.  However, some time ago we
decided to include the prefix the latter.

For this reason, I think that $PREFIX has now outlived its usefulness:
it should be removed and the prefix incorporated into the message name.
 A second reason for getting rid of it it to help users that want to
create local-language versions of the messages.  A starting point for
that would be a listing of all messages capable of being produced by the
system.  A simple "find" command can list all messages, but as the
message names do not include the prefix, the process of producing a
replacement file is more complicated than it need be.


Stephen