NAME
po4a - update both the po files and translated documents in one shot
SYNOPSIS
po4a [options] <config_file>
DESCRIPTION
The po4a (po for anything) project goal is to ease translations (and
more interestingly, the maintenance of translations) using gettext
tools on areas where they were not expected like documentation.
The po4a program is useful if you want to avoid calling
po4a-gettextize(1), po4a-updatepo(1), and po4a-translate(1) in complex
Makefiles when you have multiple files to translate, different format,
or need to specify different options for different documents.
Table of content
This document is organized as follow:
DESCRIPTION
INTRODUCTION
CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX
Specifying the template languages
Specifying the paths to translator inputs
Autodetection of the paths and languages
Specifying the documents to translate
Specifying options for the modules
Specifying aliases
Split mode
OPTIONS
EXAMPLE
SHORTCOMINGS
SEE ALSO
AUTHORS
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
INTRODUCTION
The po4a program is in charge of updating both the po files (to sync
them to the original documents) and the translated documents (to sync
them to the po files). The main point is to make the use of po4a easier
without having to remember of the command line options.
It also allows you to mix documents having different formats into the
same pot file so that you can have only one such file per project.
This behaviour can be mimicked by the other tools of the po4a suite
(for example with makefiles), but it is rather difficult to do, and
exhausting to redo the same complicated makefiles for each project
using po4a.
The dataflow can be summarized as follow. Any changes to the master
document will be reflected in the po files, and all changes to the po
files (either manual or caused by previous step) will be reflected in
translation documents.
master document --> po files --> translations
The dataflow cannot be inversed in this tool, and changes in
translations are overwritten by the content of the po files. As a
matter of fact, this tool cannot be used to convert existing
translations to the po4a system. For that task, please refer to
po4a-gettextize(1).
CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX
The (mandatory) argument is the path to the configuration file to use.
Its syntax aims at being simple and close to the configuration files
used by the intl-tools projects.
Comments in this files are noted by the char '#'. It comments
everything until the end of the line. Lines can be continued by
escaping the end of line. All non blank lines must begin with a []
command, followed by its arguments. (sound difficult said that way,
but it is rather easy, I hope ;)
Specifying the template languages
Note: It is recommended to use [po_directory] rather than [po4a_langs]
and [po4a_paths]. See section Autodetection of the paths and languages
below.
This is an optional command that can simplify the whole config file,
and will make it more scalable. You have to specify a list of the
languages in which you want to translate the documents. This is as
simple as:
[po4a_langs] fr de
This will enable you to expand $lang to all the specified languages in
the rest of the config file.
Specifying the paths to translator inputs
Note: It is recommended to use [po_directory] rather than [po4a_langs]
and [po4a_paths]. See section Autodetection of the paths and languages
below.
First, you have to specify where the translator input files (ie, the
files used by translators to do their job) are located. It can be done
by such a line:
[po4a_paths] doc/l10n/project.doc.pot \
fr:doc/l10n/fr.po de:doc/l10n/de.po
The command is thus 'po4a_paths'. The first argument is the path to the
pot file to use. All subsequent arguments are of the self-explanatory
form:
<lang>:<path to the po file for this lang>
If you've defined the template languages, you can rewrite the line
above this way:
[po4a_paths] doc/l10n/project.doc.pot $lang:doc/l10n/$lang.po
You can also use $master to refer to the document basename. In this
case, po4a will use a split mode: one POT and one PO (for each
language) will be created for each document specified in the po4a
configuration file. See the Split mode section.
[po4a_paths] doc/$master/$master.pot $lang:doc/$master/$lang.po
Autodetection of the paths and languages
Another command can be used to specify the name of a directory where
the PO and POT files are located. When it is used, po4a will detect
the POT file as the only "*.pot" file from the specified directory.
Po4a will also use the list of "*.po" files to define the list of
languages (by stripping out the extension). These languages will be
used for the substitution of the $lang variable in the rest of the
configuration file.
This command should not be used together with the po4a_langs or
po4a_paths commands.
When using this command, you have to create an empty POT file on the
first invocation of po4a to let it know the name of the POT file.
[po_directory] po4a/po/
Specifying the documents to translate
You now naturally have to specify which documents are translated, their
format, and where to put the translations. It can be made by such
lines:
[type: sgml] doc/my_stuff.sgml fr:doc/fr/mon_truc.sgml \
de:doc/de/mein_cram.sgml
[type: pod] script fr:doc/fr/script.1 de:doc/de/script.1 \
add_fr:doc/l10n/script.fr.add
This should be rather self-explanatory also. Note that in the second
case, doc/l10n/script.fr.add is an addendum to add to the French
version of this document. Please refer to po4a(7) for more information
about the addenda.
More formally, the format is:
[type: <format>] <master_doc> (<lang>:<localized_doc>)* \
(add_<lang>:<modifiers>*<addendum_path>)*
If there is no modifier, addendum_path is a path to an addendum.
Modifiers are
? Include addendum_path if this file does exist, otherwise do nothing.
@ addendum_path is not a regular addendum but a file containg a list of
addenda, one by line. Each addendum may be preceded by modifiers.
! addendum_path is discarded, it is not loaded and will not be loaded
by any further addendum specification.
If you've defined the template languages, you can rewrite the line
above this way:
[type: pod] script $lang:doc/$lang/script.1 \
add_fr:doc/l10n/script.fr.add
If all the languages had addenda with similar paths, you could also
write something like:
[type: pod] script $lang:doc/$lang/script.1 \
add_$lang:doc/l10n/script.$lang.add
Specifying options for the modules
po4a accepts options that will be passed to the module. These options
are module specific and are specified with the -o switch.
If you need a specific option for one of the document you want to
translate, you can also specify it in the configuration file. Options
are introduced by the opt keyword. The argument of the opt keyword must
be quoted with double quotes if it contains a space (e.g. if you
specify multiple options, or an option with an argument). You can also
specify options that will only apply to a specific language by using
the opt_lang keyword.
Here is an example:
[type:man] data-05/test2_man.1 $lang:tmp/test2_man.$lang.1 \
opt:"-k 75" opt_it:"-L UTF-8" opt_fr:-v
Arguments may contain spaces if you use single quotes or escaped double
quotes:
[po4a_alias:man] man opt:"-o \"mdoc=NAME,SEE ALSO\" -k 20"
If you want to specify the same options for many documents, you may
want to use an alias (see the Specifying aliases section below).
You can also set options for all the documents specified in the
configuration file:
[options] opt:"..." opt_fr:"..."
Specifying aliases
If you must specify the same options for multiple files, you may be
interested in defining a module alias. This can be done this way:
[po4a_alias:test] man opt:"-k 21" opt_es:"-o debug=splitargs"
This define a module alias named test, based on the man module, with
the -k 21 apply to all the languages and with -o debug=splitargs
applied to the Spanish translation.
This module alias can then be use like a regular module:
[type:test] data-05/test2_man.1 $lang:tmp/test2_man.$lang.1 \
opt_it:"-L UTF-8" opt_fr:-v
Note that you can specify additional options on a per file basis.
Split mode
The split mode is used when $master is used in the [po4a_paths] line.
When the split mode is used, a temporary big POT and temporary big POs
are used. This permits to share the translations between all the POs.
If two POs have different translations for the same string, po4a will
mark this string as fuzzy and will submit both translations in all the
POs which contain this string. Then, when a translator updates the
translation and removes the fuzzy tag in one PO, the translation of
this string will be updated in every POs automatically.
OPTIONS
-k, --keep
Minimal threshold for translation percentage to keep (ie, write)
the resulting file (default: 80). Ie, by default, files have to be
translated at at least 80% to get written.
-h, --help
Show a short help message.
-M, --master-charset
Charset of the files containing the documents to translate. Note
that all master documents must use the same charset for now. This
is a known limitation, and we are working on solving this.
-L, --localized-charset
Charset of the files containing the localized documents. Note that
all translated documents will use the same charset for now. This is
a known limitation, and we are working on solving this.
-A, --addendum-charset
Charset of the addenda. Note that all the addenda should be in the
same charset.
-V, --version
Display the version of the script and exit.
-v, --verbose
Increase the verbosity of the program.
-q, --quiet
Decrease the verbosity of the program.
-d, --debug
Output some debugging information.
-o, --option
Extra option(s) to pass to the format plugin. Specify each option
in the 'name=value' format. See the documentation of each plugin
for more information about the valid options and their meanings.
-f, --force
Always generate the POT and PO files, even if po4a considers it is
not necessary.
The default behavior (when --force is not specified) is the
following:
If the POT file already exists, it is regenerated if a master
document or the configuration file is more recent. The POT
file is also written in a temporary document and po4a verifies
that the changes are really needed.
Also, a translation is regenerated only if its master document,
the PO file, one of its addenda or the configuration file is
more recent. To avoid trying to regenerate translations which
do not pass the threshold test (see --keep), a file with the
'.po4a-stamp' extension can be created (see --stamp).
If a master document includes files, you should use the --force
flag because the modification time of these included files are not
taken into account.
The PO files are always re-generated based on the POT with msgmerge
-U.
--stamp
Tells po4a to create stamp files when a translation is not
generated because it does not reach the threshold. These stamp
files are named according to the expected translated document, with
the .po4a-stamp extension.
Note: This only activates the creation of the .po4a-stamp files.
The stamp files are always used if they exist, and they are removed
with --rm-translations or when the file is finally translated.
--no-translations
Do not generate the translated documents, only update the POT and
PO files.
--rm-translations
Remove the translated files (implies --no-translations).
--no-backups
Do not generate the .po~ backup files.
--rm-backups
Remove the .po~ backup files (implies --no-backups).
--translate-only translated-file
Translate only the specified file. It may be useful to speed up
processing if configuration file contains a lot of files. Note
that this option does not update PO and POT files. This option can
be used multiple times.
--variable var=value
Define a variable that will be expanded in the po4a configuration
file. Every occurrence of $(var) will be replaced by value. This
option can be used multiple times.
--msgid-bugs-address email@address
Set the report address for msgid bugs. By default, the created POT
files have no Report-Msgid-Bugs-To fields.
--copyright-holder string
Set the copyright holder in the POT header. The default value is
"Free Software Foundation, Inc."
--package-name string
Set the package name for the POT header. The default is "PACKAGE".
--package-version string
Set the package version for the POT header. The default is
"VERSION".
--msgmerge-opt options
Extra options for msgmerge.
Note: $lang will be extended to the current language.
--no-previous
This option removes '--previous' from the options passed to
msgmerge. This permits to support versions of gettext earlier than
0.16.
--previous
This option adds '--previous' to the options passed to msgmerge.
It requires gettext 0.16 or later, and is activated by default.
--srcdir SRCDIR
Set the base directory for all input documents specified in the
po4a configuration file.
--destdir DESTDIR
Set the base directory for all the output documents specified in
the po4a configuration file.
EXAMPLE
Let's assume you maintain a program named foo which has a man page
man/foo.1 which naturally is maintained in English only. Now you as the
upstream or downstream maintainer want to create and maintain the
translation. First you need to create the pot file necessary to send
to translators using po4a-gettextize(1).
So for our case we would call
cd man && po4a-gettextize -f man -m foo.1 -p foo.pot
You would then send this file to the appropriate language lists or
offer it for download somewhere on your website.
Now let's assume you received three translations before your next
release: de.po (including an addendum de.add), sv.po and pt.po. Since
you don't want to change your makefile(s) whenever a new translation
arrives you can use po4a with an appropriate configuration file in your
makefile. Let's call it po4a.cfg. In our example it would look like
the following:
[po_directory] man/
[type: man] foo.1 $lang:man/foo.$lang.1 \
add_$lang:?man/foo.$lang.add opt:"-k 80"
In this example we assume that your generated man pages (and all po and
add files) should be stored in man/ below the current directory. In our
example this directory would include de.po, de.add, pt.po and sv.po.
Note the use of the modifier '?' as only the German translation (de.po)
is accompanied by an addendum.
To actually build the translated man pages you would then (once!) add
the following line in the build target of the appropriate makefile:
po4a po4a.cfg
Once this is set up you don't need to touch the makefile when a new
translation arrives, i.e. if the French team sends you fr.po and fr.add
then you simply drop it in man/ and the next time the programm is build
the French translation is automatically build as well.
Note that you still need an appropriate target to install localized
manual pages with English ones.
Finally if you do not store generated files into your version control
system, you will need a line in your clean target as well:
-rm -f man/foo.*.1
-rm -f man/foo.pot
SHORTCOMINGS
o Duplicates some code with the po4a-* programs.
Patch welcome ;)
SEE ALSO
po4a(7), po4a-gettextize(1), po4a-updatepo(1), po4a-translate(1),
po4a-normalize(1).
AUTHORS
Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>
Nicolas Francois <nicolas.francois@centraliens.net>
Martin Quinson (mquinson#debian.org)
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 2002-2010 by SPI, inc.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of GPL (see the COPYING file).