__d() doesn't take the correct msgstr depending on the position of the msgstr inside the .po file

[burzum]

Copy pasting the internal ticket from my workmate @antoniosergio-moreira here. @netstyler

---

Original Problem

In the website's - www.german-architects.com - main navigation and in the Profiles navigation, the translation for the word "Projects" is only displaying "Projekt" and not "Projekte" (plural)

What we did at first

We checked the .po file for the word "Projects" and did not find anything. That was issue n.1. Issue n.2 is a bit trickier.

in src/View/Helper/ProfileHelper.php, line 75

[
	'name' => __d('wa', 'Projects'),
	'link' => ['controller' => 'Profiles', 'action' => 'view', $profile->slug, 'projects'],
	'editLink' => ['controller' => 'Profiles', 'action' => 'edit', 'projects'],
	'counterField' => 'project_count',
],

We added this word - "Projects" - as a msgstr to the src/Locale/de/wa.pofile.
At first, we added it in lines 297-298. Note that in lines 306-309 there is the singular/plural translation for Project/Projects. Having done this and cleared the cache, we note that the translations are not working in the website.

Addind the msgstr in lines 297-298

In the website, translations are not accurate

What we did afterwards

Afterwards, we moved the msgstrs to the bottom of the src/Locale/de/wa.po file (lines 1934-1935). After clearing cache once again, we note that the translations in the frontend are now correct.
Addind the msgstr in lines 1935-1936

In the website, translations are accurate

Seems it has something to do with the fact that if the msgstr are set before the singular/plural strings, this causes an issue - the msgstr isn't triggered or active or whatever the hell - and if the msgstr is set after the singular/plural strings, then all is well and everyone is smiling and happy and depression-free.

[dereuromark]

Is this related to #10597 ? Does the PR also fix this, or are those separate issues?

[burzum]

@dereuromark I haven't tested the PR but after reading the issues comment history I think this pretty much is the same.

[markstory]

There have been a few po file parsing changes since this was reported. Is this still an issue.

[markstory]

Fixed in #11127

[burzum]

@markstory this is still an issue as reported today by @netstyler CakePHP 3.5.5.

[netstyler]

If I remove :

msgid "Project"
msgid_plural "Projects"
msgstr[0] "Projekt"
msgstr[1] "Projekte"

Then the following does take effect:

msgid "Projects"
msgstr "Projekte"

It shows then the plural version.

It does not matter in which order I set the plural translations. Before or after the normal translations.
The plural translation seam to overwrite the normal msgid "Projects" translations.

[burzum]

@markstory I've added a test in a new branch https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/tree/bug/plural-issues Check it out and run vendor\bin\phpunit tests\TestCase\I18n\Parser\PoFileParserTest.php to see the problem.

If I debug the $messages variable when running the test case I get this:

###########################
\src\I18n\Parser\PoFileParser.php (line 175)
########## DEBUG ##########
[
        'Location' => [
                '_context' => [
                        '' => 'Standort'
                ]
        ],
        'Locations' => [
                '_context' => [
                        '' => [
                                (int) 0 => 'Standort',
                                (int) 1 => 'Standorte'
                        ]
                ]
        ]
]

Compare this to the wa.po file contents:

msgid "Location"
msgid_plural "Locations"
msgstr[0] "Standort"
msgstr[1] "Standorte"

msgid "Locations"
msgstr "Standorte"

It looks like the current implementation makes the translation including the plurals available under the "Locations" key while it actually is "Location" in the po file.

Also when debugging L115, the $item variable in parse(), I get this:

###########################
\src\I18n\Parser\PoFileParser.php (line 115)
########## DEBUG ##########
[
        'ids' => [
                'singular' => 'Locations'
        ],
        'translated' => 'Standorte'
]

Singular? It's the plural in both cases, the identifier string as the translated string as well are a plural.

I'm really surprised nobody else encounter (or at least reported) this before. It's IMHO a major issue if you have an application that relies a lot on translated content.

[markstory]

The message parsed on L115 is singular as it is a single message without plural forms attached. The parser can't look at the contents of message ids to guess whether they are singular or plural values.