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Status: Initial Draft (Req Doc) ie. please focus on technical content, rather than wordsmithing at this stage.

Author: Yves Savourel

Variables

Summary

[R024] Software text often includes placeholders for variables that are inserted at runtime and may have effect on how the text around them should be translated. It should be possible to identify such elements and label them with appropriate information so they can be translated correctly.

Challenges

An example of variable usage can be found in VoiceXML:

...
<prompt>
 I have <value expr="card_type"/> number <value expr="card_num"/>,
 expiring on <value expr="expiry_date"/>.
 Is this correct?
</prompt>
...

There are a number a challenges that can come along with variables. Some of them are:

The text of the variable has gender- or number-specific information that need to be known for a correct translation of the text around the reference.
The size of the text where the variable is may be limited, making it necessary to know the maximum size of the text of the variable to verify the length final text.