poswap¶

This tool builds a new translation file with the target text (translation) of the input file(s) as source language of the output file it creates.

This makes it possible to have French as the source file for translation, rather than English. Note that this requires no change in the software project and is only a manipulation of the strings in the existing files. The only requirement for this tool is a French translation.

It can also be used to convert translatable files that use logical IDs instead of source text into a format usable by human localisers.

Usage¶

poswap [options] <newsource> [-t current] <new>

Where:

<newsource>	is the translations (preferably 100% translated) of the preferred source language (like French)
<current>	is the (optional) current English based translation in your intended target language
<new>	is the intended output file / directory

Options:

--version: show program's version number and exit
-h, --help: show this help message and exit
--manpage: output a manpage based on the help
--progress=PROGRESS: show progress as: dots, none, bar, names, verbose
--errorlevel=ERRORLEVEL: show errorlevel as: none, message, exception, traceback
-i INPUT, --input=INPUT: read from INPUT in pot format
-x EXCLUDE, --exclude=EXCLUDE: exclude names matching EXCLUDE from input paths
-o OUTPUT, --output=OUTPUT: write to OUTPUT in po, pot formats
-t TEMPLATE, --template=TEMPLATE: read from TEMPLATE in po, pot formats
--reverse: Do the inverse operation (converting back to a normal English based file). See the examples.
--intermediate: Use intermediate language mode: keep original source and add target as translator comment. This mode is useful when translating through an intermediate language while keeping the original source language visible.

Examples¶

Ensure that the two po files / directories correspond 100% to the same pot file before using this.

To start a fresh Afrikaans (af) translation from Dutch (nl):

poswap nl.po nl-af.po

This initialises a new, empty file nl-af.po with Dutch as the source language.

To change the nl-af.po file back to the expected English based af.po:

poswap --reverse nl.po -t nl-af.po af.po

To translate Kurdish (ku) through French (fr):

poswap -i fr/ -t ku/ -o fr-ku/

This will take the existing (English based) Kurdish translation in ku/ and produce files in fr-ku with French as the source language and Kurdish as the target language.

To convert the fr-ku files back to en-ku:

poswap --reverse -i fr/ -t fr-ku/ -o en-ku/

This recreates the English based Kurdish translation from the French based files previously created in fr-ku/.

Using Intermediate Mode¶

The --intermediate option provides a simpler workflow for translating through an intermediate language. Instead of swapping the source text, it keeps the original source language and adds the intermediate language translation as a translator comment.

To translate Quechua (qu) through Spanish (es) using intermediate mode:

poswap --intermediate -t en/ es/ es-qu/

This will create files in es-qu/ with:

English as the source language (msgid)
Spanish translation as a translator comment
Empty target language (msgstr) ready for Quechua translation

This approach has several advantages:

Translators can see both English and Spanish while translating
Files can be directly uploaded to translation platforms like Pootle
No need to reverse the swap before uploading
English msgids remain unchanged, ensuring proper gettext matching

Example output:

# Hola
msgid "Hello"
msgstr ""

This mode is particularly useful for indigenous languages with a colonial language overlay (e.g., Latin American indigenous languages, languages in Francophone Africa, and other minority languages).

Issues¶

Behaviour is undetermined if the two files don't match 100%. If PO files are based in the same template, there should be no problem.
We should probably be doing fuzzy matching in future to ease the migration over the lifetime of a changing French translation.