On Mon, Sep 8, 2025 at 3:14 PM Melanie Plageman
<melanieplageman@gmail.com> wrote:
> I noticed that in that thread they decided to use errmsg_internal()
> instead of errmsg() for a few different reasons -- one of which was
> that the situation is not supposed to happen/cannot happen -- which I
> don't really understand. It is a reachable code path. Another is that
> it is extra work for translators, which I'm also not sure how to apply
> to my situation. Are the VM corruption cases worth extra work to the
> translators?
>
> I think the most compelling reason is that people will want to search
> for the error message in English online. So, for that reason, my
> instinct is to use errmsg_internal() in my case as well.
I don't find that reason particularly compelling -- people could want
to search for any error message, or they could equally want to be able
to read it without Google translate. Guessing which messages are
obscure enough that we need not translate them exceeds my powers. If I
were doing it, I'd make it errmsg() rather than errmsg_internal() and
let the translations team change it if they don't think it's worth
bothering with, because if you make it errmsg_internal() then they
won't see it until somebody complains about it not getting translated.
However, I suspect different committers would pursue different
strategies here.
--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
