1PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)           po-debconf           PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)
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NAME

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

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

13       As with any other localization work, translators should test their
14       translations by running the program they are working on.  But this is a
15       very hard job with complicated configuration scripts because there is
16       no automatic way to have all messages displayed.
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18       The podebconf-display-po program could be called the Poor Man
19       Localization Checker for debconf.  It parses a PO file, tries to guess
20       what the original templates file did look like, and displays messages
21       in a debconf interface.
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23       Of course being root is not mandatory, and there is no interaction
24       between podebconf-display-po and system-wide debconf settings.
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OPTIONS

27       -h, --help
28           Display a usage summary and exit.
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30       -f, --frontend=FRONTEND
31           Select an alternate debconf frontend.
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CAVEATS

34       •   As podebconf-display-po relies on "debconf" to display questions,
35           your environment must be setup to display localized questions in
36           the language of the PO file.  If you want to check a translation in
37           another language, you need to temporarily change your settings,
38           e.g.
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40             $ LANGUAGE=de podebconf-display-po de.po
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42           If the PO file cannot be converted into your current encoding,
43           English strings are displayed instead of the localized ones.  You
44           then have to switch to a UTF-8 environment to prevent encoding
45           mismatch.
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47       •   Prior to 0.8.3, "po-debconf" did only insert the field name in PO
48           files.  But some discussions on mailing-lists showed that text
49           format does depend on template type, e.g. string and boolean types
50           are different because the former is an open question and user has
51           to enter some text input, whereas the latter is basically a Yes/No
52           question.  Authors have to think about it when writing their
53           templates files, but translators also have to be aware.
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55           This is achieved when PO files are generated by po-debconf >=
56           0.8.3, template type is inserted in PO files.  With older versions,
57           podebconf-display-po has a trivial algorithm to determine original
58           template type, and may sometimes be wrong.
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60       •   The "dialog" frontend, when based upon "whiptail", traps system
61           signals and thus podebconf-display-po cannot be interrupted by
62           "Ctrl-C" when using this frontend.
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SEE ALSO

65       debconf(1)
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AUTHOR

68         Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>
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72                                  2023-07-21           PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)