8-Bit Clean Source Code Testing for I18N

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The tests identify and flag possible coding problems related to I18N issues. You can direct the output of the tests to a file for analysis.

Not all flagged lines contain errors. The tests cannot always tell whether or not the lines represent text that is meant for users to see. This is why you must analyze the test results. Patterns on certain lines can be filtered out if post-processing is desired.

The tests can be extended to cover whatever is needed. For instance, the information and scripts shown below were written for analyzing C and C++ programs. To test a product written in the Java programming language, use the scripts as templates and insert language-specific requirements as needed.

What the Test Checks

The code should not contain the following items:

• numbers that violate 8-bit clean rules that may affect the output
• use of the word "ascii"
  This is to ensure that character ranges hard-coded to an ASCII range can be flagged.
• hard-coded money symbols, such as dollar, pound, or yen signs used with numbers
• use of /ctime|asctime|localtime|gmtime/
  There are internationalized versions of these calls.
• use of str[n]cmp
  There are internationalized versions of these calls.
• use of a XmStringCreate that does not use XmStringCreateLocalized

• ensures that XmSTRING_DEFAULT_CHARSET is used when strings are created.
• checks for lines that hard-code a range comparison instead of using the ctype.h functions.

The test skips commented lines in C and C++ programs.

Samples and Scripts

NOTE: Please remember that these are sample scripts and tools that may need customization for your product's syntax, naming conventions, and file locations.

• This is the test (perl script).
• This is a sample C program that can be used to exercise the perl script above.
• These are the results of running the test on the C sample program.
• This is an example of a shell script that calls the test on a group of source code files with different suffixes.
• This is the results file from calling the script on the group of source code files mentioned above. File names with no messages means there were no potential errors found.
• This is a sample filter script that can post-process results files to omit lines that are not errors.