What is fuzzy strings in gettext?

Question

I am using django-rosetta fo translations. I have very basic quetion - what is fuzzy strings? And what is a practical application of fuzzy?

Answer 1

From the manual of GNU gettext utilities:

8.3.6 Fuzzy Entries

Each PO file entry may have a set of attributes, which are qualities given a name and explicitly associated with the translation, using a special system comment. One of these attributes has the name fuzzy, and entries having this attribute are said to have a fuzzy translation. They are called fuzzy entries, for short.

Fuzzy entries, even if they account for translated entries for most other purposes, usually call for revision by the translator. Those may be produced by applying the program msgmerge to update an older translated PO files according to a new PO template file, when this tool hypothesises that some new msgid has been modified only slightly out of an older one, and chooses to pair what it thinks to be the old translation for the new modified entry. The slight alteration in the original string (the msgid string) should often be reflected in the translated string, and this requires the intervention of the translator. For this reason, msgmerge might mark some entries as being fuzzy.

Also, the translator may decide herself to mark an entry as fuzzy for her own convenience, when she wants to remember that the entry has to be later revisited.