<i18n dev> RFR: 8356980: Better handling of non-breaking space

[Raffaello Giulietti]

On Thu, 15 May 2025 09:17:42 GMT, Magnus Ihse Bursie <ihse at openjdk.org> wrote:

>>> So, this exactly reverses what was done in the fix for JDK-8301991
>> 
>> No, it doesn't. I still agree with that fix -- the overwhelming majority of characters should indeed be UTF-8 instead of unicode sequences.
>> 
>> This is about a very specific character, that is impossible to visually tell the difference on screen from ordinary space.
>> 
>> Technically, it might be that some of these lines in the properties files are reversals of JDK-8301991, but that's just basically coincidence.
>
>> maybe this is just a translation error and a simple space can be used instead, like in all the other properties in these files?
> 
> That seems unlikely. The pattern is used consistently in the French translations, where `Foo:` in the original is replaced with `Foo :` with a non-breaking space. I guess it is a French orthographic rule to have a space before the colon, and I understand why it really must be non-breaking in that case.

FYI, the style guide for France [recommends](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espace_ins%C3%A9cable#En_France):

- U+202F (Narrow No-Break Space NNBSP) preceding semicolon, question mark, and exclamation mark.
- U+00A0 (No-Break Space NBSP) preceding colon.

Similar conventions are used in other French speaking countries.

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PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/25234#discussion_r2091068610