     msgfmt [OPTION] FILENAME.po ...

The msgfmt programs generates a binary message catalog from a textual translation description.

Input file location
-------------------

FILENAME.po ...

-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 an input file is -, standard input is read.

Operation mode
--------------

-j
--java
     Java mode: generate a Java ResourceBundle class.

--java2
     Like --java, and assume Java2 (JDK 1.2 or higher).

--tcl
     Tcl mode: generate a tcl/msgcat .msg file.

--qt
     Qt mode: generate a Qt .qm file.

Output file location
--------------------

-o FILE
--output-file=FILE
     Write output to specified file.

--strict
     Direct the program to work strictly following the Uniforum/Sun implementation.  Currently this only affects the naming of the output file.  If this option is not given the name of the output file is the same as the domain name.  If the strict Uniforum mode is enabled the suffix .mo is added to the file name if it is not already present.

     We find this behaviour of Sun's implementation rather silly and so by default this mode is not selected.

If the output FILE is -, output is written to standard output.

Output file location in Java mode
---------------------------------

-r RESOURCE
--resource=RESOURCE
     Specify the resource name.

-l LOCALE
--locale=LOCALE
     Specify the locale name, either a language specification of the form LL or a combined language and country specification of the form LL_CC.

-d DIRECTORY
     Specify the base directory of classes directory hierarchy.

The class name is determined by appending the locale name to the resource name, separated with an underscore.  The -d option is mandatory.  The class is written under the specified directory.

Output file location in Tcl mode
--------------------------------

-l LOCALE
--locale=LOCALE
     Specify the locale name, either a language specification of the form LL or a combined language and country specification of the form LL_CC.

-d DIRECTORY
     Specify the base directory of .msg message catalogs.

The -l and -d options are mandatory.  The .msg file is written in the specified directory.

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.

Input file interpretation
-------------------------

-c
--check
     Perform all the checks implied by --check-format, --check-header, --check-domain.

--check-format
     Check language dependent format strings.

     If the string represents a format string used in a printf-like function both strings should have the same number of % format specifiers, with matching types.  If the flag c-format or possible-c-format appears in the special comment #, for this entry a check is performed.  For example, the check will diagnose using %.*s against %s, or %d against %s, or %d against %x.  It can even handle positional parameters.

     Normally the xgettext program automatically decides whether a string is a format string or not.  This algorithm is not perfect, though.  It might regard a string as a format string though it is not used in a printf-like function and so msgfmt might report errors where there are none.

     To solve this problem the programmer can dictate the decision to the xgettext program (see c-format).  The translator should not consider removing the flag from the #, line.  This "fix" would be reversed again as soon as msgmerge is called the next time.

--check-header
     Verify presence and contents of the header entry.  See Header Entry, for a description of the various fields in the header entry.

--check-domain
     Check for conflicts between domain directives and the --output-file option

-C
--check-compatibility
     Check that GNU msgfmt behaves like X/Open msgfmt.  This will give an error when attempting to use the GNU extensions.

--check-accelerators[=CHAR]
     Check presence of keyboard accelerators for menu items.  This is based on the convention used in some GUIs that a keyboard accelerator in a menu item string is designated by an immediately preceding & character. Sometimes a keyboard accelerator is also called "keyboard mnemonic". This check verifies that if the untranslated string has exactly one & character, the translated string has exactly one & as well. If this option is given with a CHAR argument, this CHAR should be a non-alphanumeric character and is used as keyboard acceleator mark instead of &.

-f
--use-fuzzy
     Use fuzzy entries in output.  Note that using this option is usually wrong, because fuzzy messages are exactly those which have not been validated by a human translator.

Output details
--------------

-a NUMBER
--alignment=NUMBER
     Align strings to NUMBER bytes (default: 1).

--no-hash
     Don't include a hash table in the binary file.  Lookup will be more expensive at run time (binary search instead of hash table lookup).

Informative output
------------------

-h
--help
     Display this help and exit.

-V
--version
     Output version information and exit.

--statistics
     Print statistics about translations.

-v
--verbose
     Increase verbosity level.