Compile errors during translation compile

by

I am trying to translate a theme using Poedit, every thing is alright except two strings which give me errors like this:

Error: 'msgstr' is not a valid PHP format string, unlike 'msgid'. Reason: The character that terminates the directive number 1 is not a valid conversation specifier.

The string itself is this:

% comments

Both errors are in strings having % comment (not sth like % s).
Now I have two problems:
1. How can I resolve these errors? Do I need to change theme code?
2. After getting these compile errors, I used .mo and .po files anyway but some phrases had been translated and some not! What is the reason to this?

EDIT: The PHP code translation associated to is:

comments_number( __('There are no comments so far', 'hbthemes'), __('There is <strong>1 comment</strong> so far', 'hbthemes'), __('There are <strong>% comments</strong> so far', 'hbthemes') );

2 Answers
2

The % character is a special character in the gettext translation functions. To escape the % character to use it in a string, change it to %%.

If you weren’t using the __() translation functions, then a single % character would give you the number of comments. However, when you are using the translation functions, % is a special character with special meaning. If you want to actually include a % character in the string, you need to type it as %%. The __() function will send a single % on to the comments_number function, and you should get the number of comments in its place.

Your comments_number function should be:

comments_number( __('There are no comments so far', 'hbthemes'), __('There is <strong>1 comment</strong> so far', 'hbthemes'), __('There are <strong>%% comments</strong> so far', 'hbthemes') );

Leave a Comment