Invoking the xgettext Program

xgettext [option] inputfile ...

`-a'

`--extract-all'

Extract all strings.

`-c [tag]'

`--add-comments[=tag]'

Place comment block with tag (or those preceding keyword lines) in output file.

`-C'

`--c++'

Recognize C++ style comments.

`-d name'

`--default-domain=name'

Use `name.po' for output (instead of `messages.po').

`-D directory'

`--directory=directory'

Change to directory before beginning to search and scan source files. The resulting `.po' file will be written relative to the original directory, though.

`-f file'

`--files-from=file'

Read the names of the input files from file instead of getting them from the command line.

`-h'

`--help'

Display this help and exit.

`-I list'

`--input-path=list'

List of directories searched for input files.

`-j'

`--join-existing'

Join messages with existing file.

`-k word'

`--keyword[=word]'

Additonal keyword to be looked for (without word means not to use default keywords). The default keywords, which are always looked for if not explicitly disabled, are gettext, dgettext, dcgettext and gettext_noop.

`-m [string]'

`--msgstr-prefix[=string]'

Use string or "" as prefix for msgstr entries.

`-M [string]'

`--msgstr-suffix[=string]'

Use string or "" as suffix for msgstr entries.

`--no-location'

Do not write `#: filename:line' lines.

`-n'

`--add-location'

Generate `#: filename:line' lines (default).

`--omit-header'

Don't write header with `msgid ""' entry. This is useful for testing purposes because it eliminates a source of variance for generated .gmo files. We can ship some of these files in the GNU gettext package, and the result of regenerating them through msgfmt should yield the same values.

`-p dir'

`--output-dir=dir'

Output files will be placed in directory dir.

`-s'

`--sort-output'

Generate sorted output and remove duplicates.

`--strict'

Write out strict Uniforum conforming PO file.

`-v'

`--version'

Output version information and exit.

`-x file'

`--exclude-file=file'

Entries from file are not extracted.

Search path for supplementary PO files is: `/usr/local/share/nls/src/'.

If inputfile is `-', standard input is read.

This implementation of xgettext is able to process a few awkward cases, like strings in preprocessor macros, ANSI concatenation of adjacent strings, and escaped end of lines for continued strings.

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