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19. Multiple language support.

19.1 Command names.

ezmlm commands can have aliases for use in translations for non-English use. Due to the use of commands in mail e-mail addresses, the character set is limited by rfc822 to us-ascii. To enable the command aliases, remove the comment marks around the INTL_CMDS define in idx.h. Also, remove the comments from the define corresponding to one language (currently, only LANG_FR - French) available.

The INTL_CMDS define results in the compilation of all ezmlm programs with support for alias commands for those commands listed in the INTL section (all that are used directly by users). All aliases MUST be defined, but should be the normal English commands. The language-specific sections un-define and redefine the commands for which alternative names should be used. This allows use of e.g. ``inscription'' as an alias in addition to the standard ``subscribe''.

19.2 Text files.

Most ezmlm responses are made from text files in DIR/text/. These are created from the template file ``ezmlmrc''. Thanks to Frank Denis, and Masashi Fujita, Wanderlei Antonio Cavassin, Sergiusz Pawlowicz, Frank Tegtmeyer, Torben Fjerdingstad, Jan Kasprzak, and Sebastian Andersson, French, Japanese, Portuguese (var. Brazil), Polish, German, Danish, Czech, and Swedish versions are available. Just:

        % make jp
before
        # make setup
or just copy ezmlmrc.jp to /etc/ezmlmrc, where it will override the copy installed in the ezmlm binary directory. For rpm packages, the en_US version is installed, but the other versions are available in the /usr/doc/ hierarchy.

If you have made an ezmlmrc(5) version for another language, please make it public domain and E-mail it as an attachment to lindberg@id.wustl.edu. It will then be put into the ezmlmrc directory of the distribution site. Please take advantage of the ``Content-transfer-encoding'' capability of ezmlm-idx>=0.30, if needed, as this avoids problems when messages are sent via non-8-bit MUAs.

Other ezmlm responses, such as words in subject lines, are defines in idx.h and can be changed there. Error messages should ideally not be altered. However, it may make sense to change a few of them which are used as messages to e.g. remote administrators. The defines for all error messages are in errtxt.h.

19.3 Multi-byte character code support.

ezmlm, as far as we know, places no restrictions on character sets. The configurable default character set allows you to use other character sets for out going ezmlm messages. ezmlm-make does not per se support other character sets. However, any single-byte character set is supported, as long as the us-ascii character sequence ``</'' does not occur anywhere as the first characters of the line, and the character sequence ``<#x#>'' (where ``x'' is any number, or A, B, C, D, F, H, L, R, T) does not occur anywhere is text (if it does, it risks being substituted). Also, any occurrence or ``<#A#>'' and ``<#R#>'' that is the first on any text line will be substituted by ezmlm-manage and ezmlm-store. Any occurrence of ``!A'' and ``!R'' as the first characters on a line will be substituted by ezmlm-manage and ezmlm-store.

For multi-byte character codes, the same restrictions apply. Thus, ``</'' at the start of a line will confuse ezmlm-make, and any ``<#x#>'' sequence within the text risks substitution. In practice, both of these should be very rare and easily avoidable when setting up an ezmlmrc(5).


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