Poedit and Gettext Basics
gettext
This introduction is meant for novice users who knows nothing about
GNU gettext. For more details, see GNU gettext
documentation section of the manual
(note that it refers to Emacs text editor in many
places so parts of it do not apply to Poedit).
The following summary explains terminology:
- Catalogs
-
Translations are stored in catalogs (files with .po extension).
A catalog contains header (you can fill header information
in settings dialog)
and translations. Translations consists of two strings:
original text (usually in English) and matching translation.
- .mo files
-
.mo file is compiled version of text-based .po catalog.
Poedit creates it by default (you can disable this in
preferences dialog).
- References
-
Reference is a place in source code where original string
appears. Sometimes it is neccessary to consult the meaning
of original text with the source file.
- Fuzzy translation
-
Fuzzy translation is incomplete, inaccurate translation.
There are two ways how a translation may become fuzzy:
either you mark it as such (for example because you are
unsure about its correctness) or the gettext utility
msgmerge marks it when
updating the catalog.
Poedit
Poedit serves as a front-end to gettext. It allows you to edit
catalog files in comfortable way.
In addition to .po file, Poedit saves .po.poedit file with additional
information needed for updating. This file is not created if you did
not edit language, keywords or paths in
catalog settings dialog).