From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 24.08.2025 00:08, Keith Thompson wrote:

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
[...]

Since I'm also doing a lot of text oriented processing
I'm usually using some pluralization, e.g. in "C" like

printf ("Copy %d item%s ...", n, (n>1 ? "s" : "") );

[...]

I'd probably write :

Yes, sure. That was just an ad hoc typed sample to show
what I'm basically doing when considering more accurate
formulations in software.

printf("Copy %d item%s ...", n, n==1 ? "" : "s");

For legibility I prefer using parenthesis, though.

(And not only because of precedence rules in case of C++
where you typically cout << ... items.)

"Copy 0 items" seems more correct than "Copy 0 item".

Well, *that* can't happen in this application case. ;-)
(I would also not "add -2 items", BTW, to indicate any
removal.)

But in the cases that you're obviously referring to I'd
typically also avoid numbers and use "no items" (or "zero
items", depending on context).

Janis

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 24.08.2025 01:01, Andy Walker wrote:

On 23/08/2025 17:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

Often we stumble across text output from software, like
Copy 42 items (12 minutes left).
...
Copy 1 items (1 minutes left).
Since I'm also doing a lot of text oriented processing
I'm usually using some pluralization, e.g. in "C" like
printf ("Copy %d item%s ...", n, (n>1 ? "s" : "") );

Firstly, I agree with Keith that English uses the
plural in the case n = 0; n < 0 is, I suppose, unlikely to
occur in real examples.

As said in my reply to Keith's post this makes no sense in
an application case where I illustrated a copying progress.

(I agree of course about the plural of 0; how could I not.)

[...]. So instead of inline-ternary operators ?:
or procedures these Algol 68 operator variants emerged:
PRIO PLURAL = 6;
OP PLURAL = (INT amount, STRING word) STRING :
whole (amount, 0) + word + ( amount > 1 | "s" | "" );

Secondly, if you're generalising, then you "should" look
at the end of "word": eg "flies" rather than "flys". I accept,
of course, that there are limits to how much should be done; you
can spend years tweaking stuff like that.

The context where I use that is a very primitive application
case; I'm not doing text generation or anything complex like
that. - In my post I had mentioned roguelikes, like Nethack.
If you want to see a much more sophisticated algorithm have a
look into the respective source code; they have spent really
a lot effort for pluralizing rules (much more than just the
example you added!), dozens or even hundreds of lines (IIRC).
To give an example; most stuff (items) are fixed in Nethack,
but there's one thing where you can externally define a fruit;
without thinking I defined "cactus", and was surprised when I
played a game and found "two cacti" lying on the ground. :-)

Janis

[...]

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2