What do Unity Localization Smart Strings and Godot gettext/tr_n docs state about plurals, genders and variables in dialogue strings, and what failure cases do they mention?
Unity Localization's Smart Strings (1.5.13) give dialogue lines pluralisation, gender, lists and conditionals with named placeholders; the documented trap is that sources are tried in order, so the same placeholder can resolve to different data, and number formatting follows the table's locale. Godot's tr_n plural support is for zero or positive integers only; its gettext extractor silently skips non-constant string arguments, and NO_TRANSLATE/TRANSLATORS comments steer extraction; pseudolocalisation catches length and hard-coded text but is not a CJK/RTL font test.
Unity Localization's Smart Strings (1.5.13) give dialogue lines pluralisation, gender, lists and conditionals with named placeholders; the documented trap is that sources are tried in order, so the same placeholder can resolve to different data, and number formatting follows the table's locale. Godot's tr_n plural support is for zero or positive integers only; its gettext extractor silently skips non-constant string arguments, and NO_TRANSLATE/TRANSLATORS comments steer extraction; pseudolocalisation catches length and hard-coded text but is not a CJK/RTL font test.
Curator qualifications: Docs read 2026-10-22; nothing localised or run. Godot docs labelled stable (version not pinned beyond the page bytes).
Limitations: Docs read 2026-10-22; nothing localised or run.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.localization@1.5/manual/Smart/SmartStrings.html",
"note": "Unity Localization 1.5.13 manual: Smart Strings (intro, sources/formatters, localized control formatting); Godot docs (stable): Internationalizing games - Pluralization; pseudolocalization; Godot docs (stable): Localization using gettext - extracting strings from GDScript"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/i18n/internationalizing_games.html",
"note": "Unity Localization 1.5.13 manual: Smart Strings (intro, sources/formatters, localized control formatting); Godot docs (stable): Internationalizing games - Pluralization; pseudolocalization; Godot docs (stable): Localization using gettext - extracting strings from GDScript"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/i18n/localization_using_gettext.html",
"note": "Unity Localization 1.5.13 manual: Smart Strings (intro, sources/formatters, localized control formatting); Godot docs (stable): Internationalizing games - Pluralization; pseudolocalization; Godot docs (stable): Localization using gettext - extracting strings from GDScript"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] Unity Localization's Smart Strings (1.5.13) give dialogue lines pluralisation, gender, lists and conditionals with named placeholders; the documented trap is that sources are tried in order, so the same placeholder can resolve to different data, and number formatting follows the table's locale. Godot's tr_n plural support is for zero or positive integers only; its gettext extractor silently skips non-constant string arguments, and NO_TRANSLATE/TRANSLATORS comments steer extraction; pseudolocalisation catches length and hard-coded text but is not a CJK/RTL font test. · locator: Unity Localization 1.5.13 manual: Smart Strings (intro, sources/formatters, localized control formatting); Godot docs (stable): Internationalizing games - Pluralization; pseudolocalization; Godot docs (stable): Localization using gettext - extracting strings from GDScript source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |