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, and it 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.