[Pkg-crosswire-devel] ICU use and debian/tmp/usr/lib/sword/1.5.11_icu_3.8.1/translit_*.res files

[Matthew Talbert]

>
> I just noticed that building using --with-icu generates a pile of files
> named debian/tmp/usr/lib/sword/1.5.11_icu_3.8.1/translit_*.res
>
> We are currently not adding these to the resulting binary package(s).
> Should we be?  What do these files do, and how are they used?

These files, I believe, are for the transliteration filters.
Essentially, it would allow reading a Greek (or other non-latin)
script with latin characters automatically. This is not implemented by
any linux frontend that I'm aware of.

> Can anyone tell me how to test whatever the exotic extra functionality
> that linking against this library adds to Sword?

This library adds, besides the transliteration, character ordering
according to specific locales. This is important for creating search
indexes, creating dictionaries, etc.

However, currently the linux frontends implement their own methods for
ordering via their respective platforms, so it would not add any
functionality to the frontends to include icu at this point. I expect
that will change. It would add functionality for module creators
presumably, but I do not know enough to comment about that in
particular.

Another note about icu, is that I've heard reports from other frontend
developers that sword built with icu becomes unstable, especially
caused by the transliteration filters. Most of the filters have now
been removed in sword svn for this very reason.

Based on my understanding, my vote would be to release sword-1.5.11
without icu, as it provides currently no direct benefit to end users,
and may cause stability issues. I would expect this to change with
1.5.12.

Matthew