sorry for the typo mistakes :-/

i wanted to be more precise and came to an conclusion how to solve that for cases like mine: there should be a function within glib that gives me the present locale string for an entry. just like this:

gchar *g_key_file_get_locale (GKeyFile *key_file, const gchar *group_name, const gchar *key, const gchar *global_locale);

after calling that, i could use that for future g_key_file_set_locale_string() calls. this would solve it for me.

I'm not sure I understand what the problem is you are trying to describe here.
g_key_file_get_locale_string() does fall back to incomplete locale variants, while g_key_file_set_locale_string() just trusts you to pass in the exact locale string that you want to set the string for. Is that your problem ?

A short, selfcontained example showing your problem might help.

(In reply to comment #3)
> I'm not sure I understand what the problem is you are trying to describe here.
> g_key_file_get_locale_string() does fall back to incomplete locale variants,
> while g_key_file_set_locale_string() just trusts you to pass in the exact
> locale string that you want to set the string for. Is that your problem ?

you got it, this is the exact problem. i just copied the function names and missed to correct them afterwards, sorry.

> A short, selfcontained example showing your problem might help.

this is a modified example, i got from a dear helper from #gtk+ in irc.gimp.net (the original went offline, sadly):

http://pastebin.com/f2aead970

it shows, that the function does create a new entry, even if i want that entry changed within the current locale i have read through g_key_file_get_locale_string(). this IS a correct behaviour after all, i would just like to have a s/get/set function for that locale as described in commend #2

this is a workaround i did for my purpose (vala):

http://pastebin.com/f4aaa1469

Here's the code that's been pasted to those 3rd party sites:
/****
 gcc -o TestGLib.o test.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs glib-2.0` && LANG="de" ./TestGLib.o
****/

#include <glib.h>
#include <locale.h>

int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
    gchar *lang;
    GKeyFile *key;

    key = g_key_file_new();
    g_key_file_set_locale_string( key, "TMP GROUP", "tmp_key", "de", "test string" );
    g_key_file_set_locale_string( key, "TMP GROUP", "tmp_key", "de_DE", "other" );
    g_print( "%s\n", g_key_file_to_data( key, NULL, NULL ) );

    return( 0 );
}


	public string get_actual_locale(string key) {
		try {
			string temp = slocale.substring(0,5); // de_DE
			if(kf.has_key("Desktop Entry", key+"["+temp+"]"))
				return temp;
			temp = slocale.substring(0,2); // de
			if(kf.has_key("Desktop Entry", key+"["+temp+"]"))
				return temp;
		} catch (KeyFileError ek) {
			stdout.printf("%s", ek.message);
		}
		return slocale; // if translation was not present yet
	}

Created attachment 258378 [details] [review]
GKeyFile: add API for getting locale of a string

g_key_file_get_locale_string() returns a translated string from the
keyfile.  In some cases, it may be useful to know the locale that that
string came from.

Add a new API g_key_file_get_string_locale() that returns the locale of
the string.

Created attachment 258379 [details] [review]
GKeyFile test: add test for get_string_locale()

Add a testcase for the previous commit.

Review of attachment 258378 [details] [review]:

::: glib/gkeyfile.c
@@ +2140,2 @@
 /**
+ * g_key_file_get_string_locale:

Needs to be added to docs/reference/glib/glib-sections.txt.

@@ +2143,3 @@
+ * @group_name: a group name
+ * @key: a key
+ * @locale: (allow-none): a locale identifier or %NULL

(nullable)

@@ +2147,3 @@
+ * Returns the actual locale from which the result of
+ * g_key_file_get_locale_string() or g_key_file_get_locale_string_list()
+ * came.

‘from which the result came’ is not a happy sentence way to construct. How about ‘Returns the actual locale which the result of … or … came from’.

@@ +2155,3 @@
+ * this function.
+ *
+ * Returns: the locale from the file, or %NULL if the key was not found

(nullable)

@@ +2158,3 @@
+ *   or the entry in the file was was untranslated
+ *
+ * Since: 2.40

2.56

@@ +2159,3 @@
+ *
+ * Since: 2.40
+ **/

`**/` is deprecated gtk-doc syntax; we use `*/` now.

@@ +2164,3 @@
+                             const gchar *group_name,
+                             const gchar *key,
+                             const gchar *locale)

Alignment seems a bit suspect here.

@@ +2167,3 @@
+{
+  gboolean free_languages = FALSE;
+  gchar **languages;

Would be better to have a:

gchar **languages_allocated = NULL;
const gchar * const *languages;

and assign languages = languages_allocated; in the allocated case. Free languages_allocated unconditionally.

@@ +2169,3 @@
+  gchar **languages;
+  gchar *result;
+  gint i;

gsize

Review of attachment 258379 [details] [review]:

Yeah.

Created attachment 367795 [details] [review]
GKeyFile: add API for getting locale of a string

g_key_file_get_locale_string() returns a translated string from the
keyfile.  In some cases, it may be useful to know the locale that that
string came from.

Add a new API, g_key_file_get_locale_for_key(), that returns the locale
of the string.

Include tests.

(Modified by Philip Withnall to rename the API and fix some minor review
issues. Squash in a separate test case commit.)

I updated the patch to address the review issues, plus I also squashed in the tests (because having them in a separate commit doesn’t seem to make sense), and to rename the new API from g_key_file_get_string_locale() to g_key_file_get_locale_for_key(). I think the new name is less likely to get confused with the existing g_key_file_get_locale_string().

Putting it up here for review to get a second opinion on the new name.

Review of attachment 367795 [details] [review]:

Not sure it is a super-useful api, but +100 for adding a test.

Review of attachment 367795 [details] [review]:

Not sure it is a super-useful api, but +100 for adding a test.

Pushed to master, thanks.

Attachment 367795 [details] pushed as 1574321 - GKeyFile: add API for getting locale of a string