Question about XLIFF 1.2 Specification

Dear All,

This is Ai-fang Liu from HPE ACG (Application and Content Globalization) Team.

I have a question and some comments about “how repetitions are handled in XLIFF file”.

I checked In XLIFF 1.2 Specification, it seems it doesn’t have any definition for “Repetition”.

That is in .xliff file, we can’t tell easily if a segment is “repetition” or not. Right?

In translation process, translators need to handle both in-file repetition and cross-file repetition.

For in-file repetition, it’s easy to handle as most CAT tools have “auto-propagation” feature. All the repetitions are automatically handled when the first appearance of that segment is translated.

But cross-file repetitions can only be automatically translated by TM.

If the files are translated by multiple translators and no TM sharing among them, cross-file repetitions can’t be auto translated by shared TM. It’s normal situations for most translators.

In this case, localization PM would like to lock the repetitions (at lease cross-file repetitions) before sending the xliff files to translators.

And PM will unlock the repetitions after they got translation, and then translate the repetitions by TM.

If it can be clearly identified which segments are repetitions, it’s very easy to lock and unlock those segments.

So I would suggest to have an attribute for “repetition” in xliff Specification, and it’s better to distinguish in-file repetition and cross-file repetition.

Because these two repetitions need different efforts, and sometimes PM pay them differently too.

Or if you think it’s not sensible to have “repetition” in xliff specification, could you help me to understand why?

Look forward to getting your reply.

Thanks & Best Regards,

Ai-fang Liu
HPE ACG - Applications and Content Globalization

ai-fang.liu@hpe.com
+86 21 60464241 Office

Shanghai, China
hpe.com

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