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https://github.com/gflohr/locale-xgettext

Universal xgettext frontend
https://github.com/gflohr/locale-xgettext

gnu-gettext i18n l10n locale-xgettext perl xgettext

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Universal xgettext frontend

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README 

        
# Locale-XGettext



Extract strings from arbitrary formats into PO files



## Description



When using 

[GNU gettext](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/)

you often find yourself extracting translatable

strings from more or less exotic file formats that cannot be handled

by xgettext from the

[GNU gettext](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/)

suite directly.  This package simplifies

the task of writing a string extractor in Perl, Python, Java, Ruby or

other languages by providing a common base needed for such scripts.



## Usage



Included is a sample string extractor [xgettext-txt](bin/xgettext-txt) for plain text files.  It simply

splits the input into paragraphs, and turns each paragraph into an

entry of a PO file.



## Common Workflow



The idea of the package is that you just a write a parser plug-in for

`Locale::XGettext` and use all the boilerplate code for generating the

PO file and for processing script options from this library.  One such

example is a parser plug-in for strings in templates for the

Template Toolkit version 2 included in the package 

[Template-Plugin-Gettext](https://github.com/gflohr/Template-Plugin-Gettext).

that contains a script `xgettext-tt2` which can only extract

strings from that particular template language.



If this is the only source of translatable strings you are mostly done.

Often times you will, however, have to merge strings from all different

input formats into one single PO file.  Let's assume that your project

is written in Perl and C and that it also contains Template Toolkit

templates and plain text files that have to be translated.



1. Use `xgettext-txt` from this package to extract strings from all

   plain text files and write the output into `text.pot`.



2. Use `xgettext-tt2` from 

   [Template-Plugin-Gettext](https://github.com/gflohr/Template-Plugin-Gettext)

   to extract all strings

   from your templates into another file `templates.pot`.



3. Finally use `xgettext` from

   [GNU gettext](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/)

   for extracting strings from

   all source files written in Perl and C, _and_ from the previously

   created pot files `text.pot` and `templates.pot`.  This works

   because `xgettext` natively understands `.po` resp. `.pot` files.

 

By the way, all xgettext flavors based on `Locale::XGettext`

are also able to extract strings from `.po` or `.pot` files.  So you

can also make do completely without GNU gettext and use any `Locale::XGettext`

extractor instead of GNU gettext for the last step.



## Writing Extractors



Writing an extractor is as easy as implementing one single method that

takes a filename argument and extract strings from that file.  See 

the manual page

[Locale::XGettext(3pm)](http://search.cpan.org/~guido/Locale-XGettext/lib/Locale/XGettext.pm)

for more information.  See [samples/README.md](samples/README.md)

as a starting point for writing an extractor in Perl or many

other languages.  The distribution currently contains fully functional

examples written in [C](samples/C/README.md), [Java](samples/Java/README.md), 

[Python](samples/Python/README.md), [Perl](samples/Perl/README.md),

and [Ruby](samples/Ruby/README.md).



## Differences To `xgettext` From GNU Gettext



There a couple of subtle differences in the handling of command-line

arguments between extractors based on `Locale::XGettext` and

the original `xgettext` program.  Report a bug if you think that

a particular difference is a bug and not an improvement.



One thing that `Locale::XGettext` does not support is the prefix

"pass-" for flag definitions.  While it is possible for an

extractor to implement the behavior of GNU gettext, this is not

directly supported by `Locale::XGettext`.  Instead, that

prefix is simply ignored, when specified on the command-line

for an option argument to "--flag" or as part of the set of 

default flags for a particular extractor.



Additionally, while `xgettext` from GNU gettext has a hard-coded,

fixed set of supported formats, you can specify arbitrary formats

with "--flag" for extractors based on `Locale::XGettext`.



## Installation



### From CPAN



You can install the latest version of `Locale::XGettext` from

[CPAN](http://search.cpan.org/) with:



```

$ cpan Locale::XGettext

```



If the command `cpan` is not installed, try instead:



```

$ perl -MCPAN -e 'install Locale::XGettext'

```



### From Sources



Download the sources from 

[Locale-XGettext](https://github.com/gflohr/Locale-XGettext) and



```

$ tar cxf Locale-XGettext-VERSION.tar.gz

$ cd Locale-XGettext-VERSION

$ perl Makefile.PL

$ make

$ make test

$ make install

```



### From Git



```

$ git clone https://github.com/gflohr/Locale-XGettext.git

$ cd Locale-XGettext

$ dzil build

$ cd Locale-XGettext-VERSION

```



From here, follow the instructions for installation from sources.



The command `dzil` is part of [Dist::Zilla](http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Dist-Zilla/).



## TODO



The module should ship with its own PO parser and writer.



## Bugs



Please report bugs at 

[https://github.com/gflohr/Locale-XGettext/issues](https://github.com/gflohr/Locale-XGettext/issues)



## Copyright



Copyright (C) 2016-2017, Guido Flohr, , 

all rights reserved.