NAME

       podebconf-display-po - display content of a PO file in a debconf interface

SYNOPSIS

       podebconf-display-po [-h] [-f FRONTEND] file.po

DESCRIPTION

       As with any other localization work, translators should test their translations by running the program
       they are working on.  But this is a very hard job with complicated configuration scripts because there is
       no automatic way to have all messages displayed.

       The podebconf-display-po program could be called the Poor Man Localization Checker for debconf.  It
       parses a PO file, tries to guess what the original templates file did look like, and displays messages in
       a debconf interface.

       Of course being root is not mandatory, and there is no interaction between podebconf-display-po and
       system-wide debconf settings.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
           Display a usage summary and exit.

       -f, --frontend=FRONTEND
           Select an alternate debconf frontend.

CAVEATS

       •   As podebconf-display-po relies on "debconf" to display questions, your environment must be setup to
           display localized questions in the language of the PO file.  If you want to check a translation in
           another language, you need to temporarily change your settings, e.g.

             $ LANGUAGE=de podebconf-display-po de.po

           If the PO file cannot be converted into your current encoding, English strings are displayed instead
           of the localized ones.  You then have to switch to a UTF-8 environment to prevent encoding mismatch.

       •   Prior to 0.8.3, "po-debconf" did only insert the field name in PO files.  But some discussions on
           mailing-lists showed that text format does depend on template type, e.g. string and boolean types are
           different because the former is an open question and user has to enter some text input, whereas the
           latter is basically a Yes/No question.  Authors have to think about it when writing their templates
           files, but translators also have to be aware.

           This is achieved when PO files are generated by po-debconf >= 0.8.3, template type is inserted in PO
           files.  With older versions, podebconf-display-po has a trivial algorithm to determine original
           template type, and may sometimes be wrong.

       •   The "dialog" frontend, when based upon "whiptail", traps system signals and thus podebconf-display-po
           cannot be interrupted by "Ctrl-C" when using this frontend.

SEE ALSO

       debconf(1)

AUTHOR

         Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>

                                                   2018-11-20                            PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)