[liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: ISO language code to table name mapping API
- From: "John J. Boyer" <johnjboyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:48:31 -0600
Christian,
This is a good idea. Before going ahead with it we should think it
through carefully and discuss it more on the list. One thing we have to
take account of is that the table name given to lou_getTable can be a
list of tables separated by commas. this can include a hyphenation
table.
Instead of beginning by hard-coding the information, it would be better
to write a new liblouis tool to generate a file containing it. The
lou_getTableName function would then refer to this file. I can `write
this tool. First we will have to agree on the format of a header line in
tables containing the necessary information.
John
On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 02:52:52PM +0100, Christian Egli wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I would like to advance the integration of Liblouis in tools such as
> OpenOffice and other XML tool chains such as the Daisy Pipeline. When
> generating a Braille from an XML or from a OpenOffice document I would
> assume that a user generally doesn't have a concept of a translation
> table. They know that their text is in a certain language, they probably
> know that they would like to have the Braille in a certain grade and
> maybe a few other characteristics. Right now, however, the user has to
> specify a specific table when invoking xml2brl or any of the liblouis
> translation services.
>
> So, what I'd like to do is to add some abstraction where the user
> specifies a language (ISO639-1), optionally a country code (ISO3166-1),
> a grade and maybe some additional information such as 6 or 8 dot
> Braille. From that information Liblouis would automatically pick the
> right table.
>
> A first step in that direction would be a mapping between iso language
> code, grade and table name. This mapping could have a public API so that
> NVDA could use it. The next step would probably be an extension of the
> current API where you could invoke the translation functions given a iso
> language code and a grade instead of a table name. And the third step
> would be to add support in liblouisxml for the xml:lang attribute in the
> sense that it would change to the right table based on the value of
> xml:lang.
>
> But let's take this step by step. For the iso language code, grade and
> table name mapping I envision a simple API as follows:
>
> typedef struct {
> char iso_language[2]; /* ISO 639-1 */
> char iso_region[3]; /* ISO 3166 */
> short grade;
> char * table_name;
> } table_info;
>
> char * lou_getTableName (char *iso_language, char *iso_region, short grade);
>
> possibly a function to query all the available languages would be needed
> as well. The implementation would simply be along the following:
>
> static const table_info table_list[] = {
> {"en", "US", 1, "en-us-g1.ctb"},
> {"de", "", 0, "de-de-g0.utb"},
> ...
> };
>
> char * lou_getTableName (char *iso_language, char *iso_region, short grade)
> {
> /* find a table name for the given criteria if none found return null */
> }
>
> To begin we could simply hard code the list of tables. As a bonus (and
> probably fairly simple) a Perl script could generate the table_list.
> That would mean that the tables have to contain the relevant information
> in an easy to parse form.
>
> Before I go ahead and try to hack this stuff up, there are a few open
> questions: How do we deal with 6 and 8 dot? What do we do with computer
> braille? How do we handle the UEBC tables?
>
> I'd like to know if this approach makes sense, if the API looks OK and
> simply get feedback.
>
> Thanks
> Christian
> --
> Christian Egli
> Swiss Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired
> Grubenstrasse 12, CH-8045 Zürich, Switzerland
>
> For a description of the software and to download it go to
> http://www.jjb-software.com
--
My websites:
GodTouches Digital Ministry, Inc. http://www.godtouches.org
Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Location: Madison, WI, USA
For a description of the software and to download it go to
http://www.jjb-software.com
Other related posts:
