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📛 NAME

msgcat — concatenate and merge PO files

📋 SYNOPSIS

msgcat [OPTION] [INPUTFILE]...

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
Concatenate PO files	msgcat file1.po file2.po	Merge multiple PO files into one
Find common messages	msgcat --more-than=2 *.po	Show messages that appear in more than 2 files
Find unique messages	msgcat --unique *.po	Show messages that appear in only one file
Specify output file	msgcat -o output.po file.po	Write merged output to a file
Use first translation	msgcat --use-first file.po	Keep first translation instead of merging
Change output encoding	msgcat -t UTF-8 file.po	Convert to specified encoding

📖 DESCRIPTION

The msgcat program concatenates and merges the specified PO files. It finds messages which are common to two or more of the specified PO files. By using the --more-than option, greater commonality may be requested before messages are printed. Conversely, the --less-than option may be used to specify less commonality before messages are printed (i.e. --less-than=2 will only print the unique messages). Translations, comments, extracted comments, and file positions will be cumulated, except that if --use-first is specified, they will be taken from the first PO file to define them.

To concatenate POT files, better use xgettext, not msgcat, because msgcat would choke on the undefined charsets in the specified POT files.

📁 9.1.1 Input file location

• INPUTFILE ... — Input files.
• -f FILE, --files-from=FILE — Read the names of the input files from FILE instead of getting them from the command line.
• -D DIRECTORY, --directory=DIRECTORY — Add DIRECTORY to the list of directories. Source files are searched relative to this list of directories. The resulting .po file will be written relative to the current directory, though.

If INPUTFILE is -, standard input is read.

📤 9.1.2 Output file location

• -o FILE, --output-file=FILE — Write output to specified file.

The results are written to standard output if no output file is specified or if it is -.

🔍 9.1.3 Message selection

• -< NUMBER, --less-than=NUMBER — Print messages with less than NUMBER definitions, defaults to infinite if not set.
• -> NUMBER, --more-than=NUMBER — Print messages with more than NUMBER definitions, defaults to 0 if not set.
• -u, --unique — Shorthand for --less-than=2. Requests that only unique messages be printed.

🔧 9.1.4 Input file syntax

• -P, --properties-input — Assume the input files are Java ResourceBundles in Java .properties syntax, not in PO file syntax.
• --stringtable-input — Assume the input files are NeXTstep/GNUstep localized resource files in .strings syntax, not in PO file syntax.

🎨 9.1.5 Output details

• -t, --to-code=NAME — Specify encoding for output.
• --use-first — Use first available translation for each message. Don't merge several translations into one.
• --lang=CATALOGNAME — Specify the Language field to be used in the header entry. See Header Entry for the meaning of this field. Note: The Language-Team and Plural-Forms fields are left unchanged.
• --color, --color=WHEN — Specify whether or when to use colors and other text attributes. See The --color option for details.
• --style=STYLE_FILE — Specify the CSS style rule file to use for --color. See The --style option for details.
• --force-po — Always write an output file even if it contains no message.
• -i, --indent — Write the .po file using indented style.
• --no-location — Do not write #: FILENAME:LINE lines.
• -n, --add-location=TYPE — Generate #: FILENAME:LINE lines (default). The optional TYPE can be either full, file, or never. If it is not given or full, it generates the lines with both file name and line number. If it is file, the line number part is omitted. If it is never, it completely suppresses the lines (same as --no-location).
• --strict — Write out a strict Uniforum conforming PO file. Note that this Uniforum format should be avoided because it doesn't support the GNU extensions.
• -p, --properties-output — Write out a Java ResourceBundle in Java .properties syntax. Note that this file format doesn't support plural forms and silently drops obsolete messages.
• --stringtable-output — Write out a NeXTstep/GNUstep localized resource file in .strings syntax. Note that this file format doesn't support plural forms.
• -w NUMBER, --width=NUMBER — Set the output page width. Long strings in the output files will be split across multiple lines in order to ensure that each line's width (= number of screen columns) is less or equal to the given NUMBER.
• --no-wrap — Do not break long message lines. Message lines whose width exceeds the output page width will not be split into several lines. Only file reference lines which are wider than the output page width will be split.
• -s, --sort-output — Generate sorted output. Note that using this option makes it much harder for the translator to understand each message's context.
• -F, --sort-by-file — Sort output by file location.

ℹ️ 9.1.6 Informative output

• -h, --help — Display this help and exit.
• -V, --version — Output version information and exit.

📛 NAME 📋 SYNOPSIS 🚀 Quick Reference 📖 DESCRIPTION