Appendix 8: worked translation example

What needs to be translated?

As was seen in "Appendix 7: worked calculation example" a route was produced that looked like this:-

How would this be translated into a human language?

Version 1: the verbose option

This version translates all the tags into a meaningful phrase. It is used when the size of the output is not a problem, eg for HTML output. The tags are replaced as follows:-

Replace With
<A..A> nothing: get rid of it
<B..B> nothing: get rid of it
<C..C> "via .."
<D..D> "for .."
<E..E> change <EWE> to " heading West", <ENE> to " heading North" and so on
<F..F> "by .."
<G..G> "arriving at".."minutes" and translate the time into English
<H..H> "* Go from.."
<I..I> "to .."

These expressions would turn:-

into:-

Version 2: the brusque option.

This version blanks out some of the tags. It is used when the size of the output is a problem, eg for Wap output. The tags are replaced as follows:-

Replace With
<A..A> nothing: get rid of it
<B..B> nothing: get rid of it
<C..C> "via .."
<D..D> "for .."
<E..E> change <EWE> to "West", <ENE> to "North" and so on
<F..F> "by .."
<G..G> nothing: get rid of it
<H..H> "* Go " and lose the tag contents
<I..I> "to .."

These expressions would turn:-

into:-

which is about as brusque as the route can be whilst still remaining comprehensible.

Version 3: compress the route.

It may have been noticed that the route invoves going from Bristol to Swindon on the M4, followed by Swindon to Reading on the M4. This can be compressed by turning this:-

into this:-

and the translation can proceed as before.