GNU Gettext is a widely used internationalization system implemented across many programming languages and frameworks, including PHP, Python, C, and C#. LingoHub supports the Portable Object (.po) format, which is the standard human-readable format for Gettext.

LingoHub also supports Portable Object Template (.pot) files. Every imported .pot file serves as a source language update, where the msgid attributes define both the segment keys and the source language values.

Format

LingoHub uses the msgid attribute as the segment key.
The msgstr attribute provides the translation content for the segment.
If a msgctxt attribute is present, LingoHub includes it in the segment key (e.g., msgctxt/msgid).
The combination of msgctxt and msgid must be unique within each file.
Supported placeholders include standard printf formatters such as %s, %d, and %3.4d.
LingoHub supports plural forms defined via the msgid_plural attribute.
LingoHub preserves the PO file header and its metadata during export.
LingoHub respects the charset defined in the header (e.g., Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8).
Comments beginning with # are parsed and assigned as descriptions to the subsequent segment.
LingoHub preserves special comments (such as references or flags) and header comments without modification.

LingoHints can be included in a comment:

# <lh>{"status": "DRAFT","qc": {"min": "3","max": "20"},"labels": ["q3-2024"],"not_translatable": false}</lh>
msgctxt "email"
msgid "To"
msgstr "To"

Example

Additional example files are available on GitHub.

# header comment

msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: LingoHub 1.6.0\n"
"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: \n"
"POT-Creation-Date: 2013-05-05 19:22+0200\n"
"PO-Revision-Date: 2013-04-29 10:16+0100\n"
"Last-Translator: Translator <[email protected]>\n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n>1;\n"

msgid "mood"
msgid_plural "%d moods"
msgstr[0] "%d mood"
msgstr[1] "%d moods"

# plural form for the singular item
msgid "hand"
msgid_plural "%d hands"
msgstr[0] "%d hand"

# LingoHub translation title: "email/To"
msgctxt "email"
msgid "To"
msgstr "To"

# Multi-line values
msgid "slogan"
msgstr "" 
"Continuous Translation "
"Made Simple"

Gettext PO

Format

Example

Used by

References