There should be a space before the : character in french

[greganeclegor]

The function the_meta generates a list with the character : after the values. However, in french and maybe other languages, a non breaking space is needed before the colon character.

​https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/46/pourquoi-place-t-on-une-espace-avant-les-ponctuations-fortes-why-is-there-a

​http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tcdnstyl-chap?lang=eng&lettr=chapsect17&info0=17

​https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/fr-space-before-a-colon-semicolon-question-mark-or-exclamation-point.54376/

[johnbillion]

Thanks for the ticket, @greganeclegor.

This function is a terribly old one, which looks like it's full of bugs. For example, it assumes that meta values are strings. I would recommend writing your own function which just outputs what you need.

That said, a patch which changes $key: into something like _x( '%s:', 'Post custom field name' ) would be welcome.

[audrasjb]

Hello,

Thanks greganeclegor for the ticket. I’m french and a member of the fr_FR polyglots team :)

This is a patch proposal for this ticket.
I simply add a internationalized separator and I included it in the output.

I hope that everything is okay, this is my very first patch. I tried to follow WP coding standards and I tried to read a lot before coding. But I wont be surprised if I did some mistakes… I hope that my git .diff is okay too.

Let me know if anything is wrong, I'll be happy to do better the next time.

Best regards,
Jb

[audrasjb]

Patch first proposition for #41653

[audrasjb]

Small correction: normal space after ":" instead of unbreakable

[johnbillion]

Thanks for the patch.

It would be preferable if this whole string was localised, but the <span> element complicates this. I think 41653.2.diff​ is about as good as this will get.

[audrasjb]

@johnbillion thanks for reviewing.
As a PTE I was sad to have to do it this way but it was more complicated to deal with that markup. I hope translators will understand it with the explanation provided in the string.

[SergeyBiryukov]

41653.2.diff​ is a good start. Some things to consider:

• We can't change existing filter's parameters like that, new parameters should come at the end.
• Translatable strings should not include any trailing spaces, as they can be accidentally removed.
• It's better to translate %s:, as suggested in comment:1, than a standalone separator.

41653.3.diff​ implements comment:1.

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 41583:

I18N: Allow for post custom field name in the_meta() to be translated, e.g. to insert a non-breaking space before the colon.

Props audrasjb, johnbillion.
Fixes #41653.