Provided by: po4a_0.69-1_all 
NAME
Locale::Po4a::Po - PO file manipulation module
SYNOPSIS
use Locale::Po4a::Po;
my $pofile=Locale::Po4a::Po->new();
# Read PO file
$pofile->read('file.po');
# Add an entry
$pofile->push('msgid' => 'Hello', 'msgstr' => 'bonjour',
'flags' => "wrap", 'reference'=>'file.c:46');
# Extract a translation
$pofile->gettext("Hello"); # returns 'bonjour'
# Write back to a file
$pofile->write('otherfile.po');
DESCRIPTION
Locale::Po4a::Po is a module that allows you to manipulate message catalogs. You can load
and write from/to a file (which extension is often po), you can build new entries on the
fly or request for the translation of a string.
For a more complete description of message catalogs in the PO format and their use, please
refer to the info documentation of the gettext program (node "`PO Files"').
This module is part of the po4a project, which objective is to use PO files (designed at
origin to ease the translation of program messages) to translate everything, including
documentation (man page, info manual), package description, debconf templates, and
everything which may benefit from this.
OPTIONS ACCEPTED BY THIS MODULE
--porefs type
Specify the reference format. Argument type can be one of never to not produce any
reference, file to only specify the file without the line number, counter to replace
line number by an increasing counter, and full to include complete references
(default: full).
--wrap-po no|newlines|number (default: 76)
Specify how the po file should be wrapped. This gives the choice between either files
that are nicely wrapped but could lead to git conflicts, or files that are easier to
handle automatically, but harder to read for humans.
Historically, the gettext suite has reformatted the po files at the 77th column for
cosmetics. This option specifies the behavior of po4a. If set to a numerical value,
po4a will wrap the po file after this column and after newlines in the content. If set
to newlines, po4a will only split the msgid and msgstr after newlines in the content.
If set to no, po4a will not wrap the po file at all. The reference comments are
always wrapped by the gettext tools that we use internally.
Note that this option has no impact on how the msgid and msgstr are wrapped, ie on how
newlines are added to the content of these strings.
--msgid-bugs-address email@address
Set the report address for msgid bugs. By default, the created POT files have no
Report-Msgid-Bugs-To fields.
--copyright-holder string
Set the copyright holder in the POT header. The default value is "Free Software
Foundation, Inc."
--package-name string
Set the package name for the POT header. The default is "PACKAGE".
--package-version string
Set the package version for the POT header. The default is "VERSION".
Functions concerning entire message catalogs
new()
Creates a new message catalog. If an argument is provided, it's the name of a PO file
we should load.
read($)
Reads a PO file (which name is given as argument). Previously existing entries in
self are not removed, the new ones are added to the end of the catalog.
write($)
Writes the current catalog to the given file.
write_if_needed($$)
Like write, but if the PO or POT file already exists, the object will be written in a
temporary file which will be compared with the existing file to check if the update is
needed (this avoids to change a POT just to update a line reference or the POT-
Creation-Date field).
filter($)
This function extracts a catalog from an existing one. Only the entries having a
reference in the given file will be placed in the resulting catalog.
This function parses its argument, converts it to a Perl function definition, evals
this definition and filters the fields for which this function returns true.
I love Perl sometimes ;)
to_utf8()
Recodes to UTF-8 the PO's msgstrs. Does nothing if the charset is not specified in the
PO file ("CHARSET" value), or if it's already UTF-8 or ASCII.
Functions to use a message catalog for translations
gettext($%)
Request the translation of the string given as argument in the current catalog. The
function returns the original (untranslated) string if the string was not found.
After the string to translate, you can pass a hash of extra arguments. Here are the
valid entries:
wrap
boolean indicating whether we can consider that whitespaces in string are not
important. If yes, the function canonizes the string before looking for a
translation, and wraps the result.
wrapcol
the column at which we should wrap (default: 76).
stats_get()
Returns statistics about the hit ratio of gettext since the last time that
stats_clear() was called. Please note that it's not the same statistics than the one
printed by msgfmt --statistic. Here, it's statistics about recent usage of the PO
file, while msgfmt reports the status of the file. Example of use:
[some use of the PO file to translate stuff]
($percent,$hit,$queries) = $pofile->stats_get();
print "So far, we found translations for $percent\% ($hit of $queries) of strings.\n";
stats_clear()
Clears the statistics about gettext hits.
Functions to build a message catalog
push(%)
Push a new entry at the end of the current catalog. The arguments should form a hash
table. The valid keys are:
msgid
the string in original language.
msgstr
the translation.
reference
an indication of where this string was found. Example: file.c:46 (meaning in
'file.c' at line 46). It can be a space-separated list in case of multiple
occurrences.
comment
a comment added here manually (by the translators). The format here is free.
automatic
a comment which was automatically added by the string extraction program. See the
--add-comments option of the xgettext program for more information.
flags
space-separated list of all defined flags for this entry.
Valid flags are: c-text, python-text, lisp-text, elisp-text, librep-text,
smalltalk-text, java-text, awk-text, object-pascal-text, ycp-text, tcl-text, wrap,
no-wrap and fuzzy.
See the gettext documentation for their meaning.
type
this is mostly an internal argument: it is used while gettextizing documents. The
idea here is to parse both the original and the translation into a PO object, and
merge them, using one's msgid as msgid and the other's msgid as msgstr. To make
sure that things get ok, each msgid in PO objects are given a type, based on their
structure (like "chapt", "sect1", "p" and so on in DocBook). If the types of
strings are not the same, that means that both files do not share the same
structure, and the process reports an error.
This information is written as automatic comment in the PO file since this gives
to translators some context about the strings to translate.
wrap
boolean indicating whether whitespaces can be mangled in cosmetic reformattings.
If true, the string is canonized before use.
This information is written to the PO file using the wrap or no-wrap flag.
wrapcol
the column at which we should wrap (default: 76).
This information is not written to the PO file.
Miscellaneous functions
count_entries()
Returns the number of entries in the catalog (without the header).
count_entries_doc()
Returns the number of entries in document. If a string appears multiple times in the
document, it will be counted multiple times.
msgid($)
Returns the msgid of the given number.
msgid_doc($)
Returns the msgid with the given position in the document.
type_doc($)
Returns the type of the msgid with the given position in the document. This is
probably only useful to gettextization, and it's stored separately from
{$msgid}{'type'} because the later location may be overwritten by another type when
the $msgid is duplicated in the master document.
get_charset()
Returns the character set specified in the PO header. If it hasn't been set, it will
return "UTF-8".
set_charset($)
This sets the character set of the PO header to the value specified in its first
argument. If you never call this function (and no file with a specified character set
is read), the default value is left to "UTF-8". This value doesn't change the behavior
of this module, it's just used to fill that field in the header, and to return it in
get_charset().
AUTHORS
Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>
Martin Quinson (mquinson#debian.org)