[wp-hackers] question about non standard textdomain in WordPress and wasted translation space

[Heiko Rabe]

Hi,

could somebody please explain, what this should be?

File:    wp-admin/includes/continents-cities.php

content snippet:

<?php

/* Continent and city translations for timezone selection.
 * This file is not included anywhere. It exists solely for use by xgettext.
 */

__('Africa', 'continents-cities');
__('Abidjan', 'continents-cities');
__('Accra', 'continents-cities');
__('Addis Ababa', 'continents-cities');
__('Algiers', 'continents-cities');
__('Asmara', 'continents-cities');
__('Asmera', 'continents-cities');
__('Bamako', 'continents-cities');
__('Bangui', 'continents-cities');
__('Banjul', 'continents-cities');

..... many more ....


Why did it use a different text domain than WordPress Core itself ?
Even if this is would be contained in main WordPress *.mo file, it 
doesn't get translated because this text domain doesn't exists.
Furthermore the remark text states, that it is nowhere included, so why 
we are able to tranlate such things if they never been accessed 
somewhere but occupy 486 entries at *.mo generation/translation ?

regards

Heiko Rabe
(www.code-styling.de)