Manual Pages for UNIX Operating System command usage for man xgettext

User Commands                                         xgettext(1)



NAME
     xgettext - extract gettext call strings from C programs

SYNOPSIS
     xgettext [-ns] [-a [-x exclude-file]] [-c comment-tag]
          [-d default-domain] [-j] [-m prefix] [-M suffix]
          [-p pathname] -| filename...


     xgettext -h


DESCRIPTION
     The xgettext utility is used to  automate  the  creation  of
     portable  message files (.po). A .po file contains copies of
     "C" strings that  are  found  in   ANSI  C  source  code  in
     filename  or  the standard input if  `-' is specified on the
     command line. The  .po file can be  used  as  input  to  the
     msgfmt(1)  utility, which produces a binary form of the mes-
     sage file that can be  used by application during run-time.


     xgettext writes msgid  strings  from  gettext(3C)  calls  in
     filename to the default output file messages.po. The default
     output file name can be changed by  -d option. msgid strings
     in   dgettext()   calls  are  written  to  the  output  file
     domainname.po where domainname is the first parameter to the
     dgettext() call.


     By default, xgettext creates a   .po  file  in  the  current
     working  directory, and each entry is in the same order that
     the strings are extracted from filenames. When the -p option
     is  specified,  the   .po  file  is created in the  pathname
     directory. An existing .po file is overwritten.


     Duplicate  msgids are written to the  .po  file  as  comment
     lines.  When the  -s option is specified, the  .po is sorted
     by the msgid string, and all duplicated msgids are  removed.
     All   msgstr directives in the .po file are empty unless the
     -m option is used.

OPTIONS
     The following options are supported:

     -n                   Add comment lines to  the  output  file
                          indicating file name and line number in
                          the source file  where  each  extracted
                          string   is  encountered.  These  lines
                          appear before each msgid in the follow-
                          ing format:



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User Commands                                         xgettext(1)



                            # # File: filename, line: line-number




     -s                   Generate output sorted by  msgids  with
                          all duplicate  msgids removed.


     -a                   Extract all  strings,  not  just  those
                          found in gettext(3C), and dgettext() ()
                          calls. Only one  .po file is created.


     -c comment-tag       The  comment   block   beginning   with
                          comment-tag  as  the first token of the
                          comment block is added  to  the  output
                          .po  file as  # delimited comments. For
                          multiple domains, xgettext directs com-
                          ments  and  messages  to the prevailing
                          text domain.


     -d default-domain    Rename   default   output   file   from
                          messages.po to default-domain .po.


     -j                   Join  messages  with  existing  message
                          files.   If  a .po file does not exist,
                          it is created.   If  a  .po  file  does
                          exist,  new messages are appended.  Any
                          duplicate msgids are commented  out  in
                          the  resulting .po file.  Domain direc-
                          tives in  the  existing  .po  file  are
                          ignored.  Results not guaranteed if the
                          existing message file has been edited.


     -m prefix            Fill in the msgstr with   prefix.  This
                          is  useful  for  debugging purposes. To
                          make msgstr identical to msgid, use  an
                          empty string  ("") for prefix.


     -M suffix            Fill in the msgstr with   suffix.  This
                          is useful for debugging purposes.


     -p pathname          Specify the directory where the  output
                          files will be placed. This option over-
                          rides the current working directory.




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User Commands                                         xgettext(1)



     -x exclude-file      Specify a  .po  file  that  contains  a
                          list  of  msgids  that  are  not  to be
                          extracted from  the  input  files.  The
                          format  of exclude-file is identical to
                          the .po file. However, only  the  msgid
                          directive line in exclude-file is used.
                          All other  lines  are  simply  ignored.
                          The -x option can only be used with the
                          -a option.


     -h                   Print a help message  on  the  standard
                          output.


ATTRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:



     ____________________________________________________________
    |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Availability                | text/locale                 |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|


SEE ALSO
     msgfmt(1), gettext(3C), attributes(5)

NOTES
     xgettext is not able to extract cast  strings,  for  example
     ANSI  C  casts of literal strings to (const char *). This is
     unnecessary anyway,  since  the  prototypes  in  
     already specify this type.


     In messages and translation notes, lines greater  than  2048
     characters  are  truncated  to 2048 characters and a warning
     message is printed to stderr.














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