Redfish message registries, plus translation

[Bills, Jason M]

On 2/17/2020 5:53 PM, Joseph Reynolds wrote:
> On 2/16/20 5:37 PM, Andrew Jeffery wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 15 Feb 2020, at 06:27, Matt Spinler wrote:
>>> Hi James,
>>>
>>> It's looking like in our future we will have to provide:
>>>
>>> 1) Redfish logs using multiple message registries that probably can't be
>>>      hardcoded into hpp files and checked in.
>>>      - For example, a registry for our host firmware and hypervisor 
>>> errors,
>>>        as our BMC handles displaying logs for them, that we would 
>>> pick up
>>>        during our build process.
>>> and
>>>
>>> 2) Message registry text in multiple languages
>>>
>>> Those being my goals, I have a few questions:
>>>
>>> In general, is the multi-language strategy to just provide a standalone
>>> registry array for each language which the code then selects based on 
>>> the
>>> Language property?
>>>
>>> To support both of the above, would you be open to having functionality
>>> added
>>> to read in registries from data files, including based on language? Or,
>>> would you
>>> have any other ideas for how to support these items?
>> Bit of a drive-by question, but shouldn't we be using GNU gettext[1] to
>> handle translation?
> 
> Matt's proposal is for BMCWeb to have two languages:
> 
> 1. The implementation language.  When BMCWeb writes internal log 
> entries, these will be in English.  The BMCWeb developers will use these 
> to understand what is going on,  and the BMC admin may be able to read 
> the, but they are not for BMC users.
> We can certainly use gettext to internationalize this. But it is not 
> what Matt is asking about.
> 
> 2. The languages used for Redfish messages.  These message are added to 
> the HTTP response body.  These are meant to be read by any BMC REST API 
> user.  For example, messages from the Redfish "Base" message registry 
> Base.1.7.0.json within DSP8011.  BMCWeb has a hard-coded version of a 
> subset of these messages, for example, the AccountModified message in 
> https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/redfish-core/src/error_messages.cpp 
> 
> These messages are defined in English and meant to be translated. That's 
> what Matt is asking about.
> 
> 
> Here's my drive-by response.
> 
> The current implementation is locked into English-only.  BMCWeb code 
> sends messages like this:
> 1. #include 
> https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/redfish-core/include/error_messages.hpp 
> 
> 2. Write code like: propertyValueModified(res, "myProperty", 
> myModifiedValue);
> This calls the function in error_messages.cpp which is hard-coded English.
> 
> Having hard-coded function calls and hard-coded implementations helps 
> with BMCWeb's goal for performance and startup times.
> https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/DEVELOPING.md
> 
> However, IMHO, the development process to add new Redfish messages to 
> BMCWeb is cumbersome.  It should be as easy as copying Redfish's new 
> JSON file.
To ease this, there is a script in bmcweb that is designed to parse the 
JSON message registries into the header file.  I just ran it and it has 
a couple minor bugs that were introduced when we changed the format to 
fix build warnings.  I'll push a fix.

One possible solution would be to adapt this script to run automatically 
at build time.  Then any JSON message registry files that get added 
either to bmcweb or as an append could be transparently converted to the 
header file.

> 
> IMHO, the easiest way to to support multiple languages (including 
> English) is to keep the prototypes in error_messages.hpp so all the 
> existing uses will continue to work.  Then change the implementation to 
> select a message from a JSON file based on the hard-coded message name 
> (example: AccountNotModified) and language (en-us, zh-cn, or whatever).
> 
> All of the usual issues come up with approach:
> - Will BMCWeb pre-load or load-on-demand the JSON file would be 
> pre-loaded.  It certainly will not be loaded for every message.
> - Fallbacks.  For example, if the ja-jp message files does not have the 
> AccountNotModified message, format the en-us message instead.
> - Need a default message.  For example, if BMCWeb tries to sent the 
> message "NotARealMessage" which is not defined in any message file, it 
> might be useful to send the raw data instead.
bmcweb currently provides the given MessageId with a blank Message field 
if it cannot be found in a registry.

> - We use the Redfish "Base" message registry, and I think we also use an 
> OpenBMC Oem message registry as well.  So BMCWeb will have to load 
> multiple message registries per language.
> 
> More:
> - Will a initial set of supported languages be baked into the firmware 
> image (on the BMC's file system) in English or some other languages?
> - Can the BMC admin add and remove supported languages (by adding or 
> deleting JSON message registry files)?
> - Will there be REST APIs for that?
> - Supported by the Redfish spec?
> 
> So what the the requirements?
> 
> - Joseph
> 
> You can see one open source project's work here: 
> http://userguide.icu-project.org/formatparse/messages
> 
>>
>> [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/
>>
>> Andrew
>