msginit(1) — Linux manual page

MSGINIT(1)                    User Commands                    MSGINIT(1)

NAME         top

       msginit - initialize a message catalog

SYNOPSIS         top

       msginit [OPTION]

DESCRIPTION         top

       Creates a new PO file, initializing the meta information with
       values from the user's environment.

       Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short
       options too.

   Input file location:
       -i, --input=INPUTFILE
              input POT file

       If no input file is given, the current directory is searched for
       the POT file.  If it is -, standard input is read.

   Output file location:
       -o, --output-file=FILE
              write output to specified PO file

       If no output file is given, it depends on the --locale option or
       the user's locale setting.  If it is -, the results are written to
       standard output.

   Input file syntax:
       -P, --properties-input
              input file is in Java .properties syntax

       --stringtable-input
              input file is in NeXTstep/GNUstep .strings syntax

   Output details:
       -l, --locale=LL_CC[.ENCODING]
              set target locale

       --no-translator
              assume the PO file is automatically generated

       --color
              use colors and other text attributes always

       --color=WHEN
              use colors and other text attributes if WHEN.  WHEN may be
              'always', 'never', 'auto', or 'html'.

       --style=STYLEFILE
              specify CSS style rule file for --color

       -p, --properties-output
              write out a Java .properties file

       --stringtable-output
              write out a NeXTstep/GNUstep .strings file

       -w, --width=NUMBER
              set output page width

       --no-wrap
              do not break long message lines, longer than the output
              page width, into several lines

   Informative output:
       -h, --help
              display this help and exit

       -V, --version
              output version information and exit

AUTHOR         top

       Written by Bruno Haible.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       Report bugs in the bug tracker at
       <https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gettext> or by email to
       <[email protected]>.

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 2001-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License
       GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
       <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       The full documentation for msginit is maintained as a Texinfo
       manual.  If the info and msginit programs are properly installed
       at your site, the command

              info msginit

       should give you access to the complete manual.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the gettext (message translation) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gettext/⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the tarball gettext-0.26.tar.gz fetched from
       ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/⟩ on 2025-08-11.  If you discover
       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
       mail to [email protected]

GNU gettext-tools 0.26          July 2025                      MSGINIT(1)

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