Handling Placeholders in Transaction SE63
Placeholders are transformed for display for translators.
Texts with placeholders are transformed for the display in transaction SE63 as follows:
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Placeholders in the original text such as {0}, {1}, or, in general, {N}, where N is a natural number, appear in transaction SE63 with an additionally ampersand: {0} -> {&0}
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Escaped placeholders, that is, placeholders embraced by single apostrophes such as '{0}', are displayed without the apostrophes: '{0}' -> {0}
When the texts are written back to the database, the placeholders and escaped placeholders are transformed back to the original state. According to the specification, texts in SAPUI5 need to have single apostrophes doubled in case the text contains placeholders, otherwise the single apostrophes will not appear on the UI during runtime.
Translators do not need to take care of this, as transaction SE63 automatically doubles single apostrophes when writing the text to the database. Double apostrophes of the original text, however, are displayed only with a single apostrophe in transaction SE63. This is shown in the following example:
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Original text: Mark''s placeholder is used {0} times
Display in SE63: Marks's placeholder is used {&0} times
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Original text: Note: '{0}' is an escaped placeholder
Display in SE63: Note: {0} is an escaped placeholder
Translators must not change placeholder characters in SE63: Character sequences like {&0} or {0} or '{&0}' must not be touched. The developer must ensure that the original text is formally correct, for example, use notion {0} for placeholders and double apostrophes in presence of placeholders. Character &0 is not a valid placeholder in SAPUI5 texts.
This functionality is available in transaction SE63 as of SP08 (software component UI_INFRA) and is available with SAP note 1963287.