511094 - FTP directory listing have hardcoded files size preventing localisation

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Networking: FTP, defect)

Description

[Dwayne Bailey]

Problem:
The directory listing for an FTP site uses hardcoded values for the file size

Reproduce:
1) Visit ftp://ftp.is.co.za/mirrors/OpenOffice/stable/3.1.0/ (or any FTP site) using an Afrikaans (or other) localised Firefox.
2) Observer the files sizes are NNNNN KB

Expected:
The files sizes are:
NNNNNNN KG

Further info:
If you view this code:
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/netwerk/streamconv/converters/nsIndexedToHTML.cpp#1027

it seems that " KB" is hardcoded.  Elsewhere the listing is pulling in correct locale formats for dates and times, so we assume that the intention is to localise.

This hardcoded entry makes it impossible to to translate this correctly.

Also there is an assumption made here that "%d KB" is the way that a locale writes such things.

Recommendation:
1) Pull the " KB" string into necko.properties so that it can be localised
2) Change the string to "%d KB" so that the placement of the number can be adapted by a localiser.

Comment 1

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

This might need pluralization, too.

Not sure if it's worth rewriting this in JS, as we don't have a C++ API for that.

Comment 2

[Dwayne Bailey]

(In reply to comment #1)
> This might need pluralization, too.

Maybe not.  English doesn't: 1 KB, 2 KB, etc.  So maybe others don't either in this context.

> Not sure if it's worth rewriting this in JS, as we don't have a C++ API for
> that.

That sounds like a lot of work.

I think ordering and aslo localising the number display (1000 -> 1,000 KB) would be of more value and probably easier then plurals.

Comment 3

[Patrick McManus [:mcmanus]]

this is the kind of thing that I'm going to wontfix because ftp is a legacy protocol now - we aren't taking feature enhancements for it.