Libvirt translatable messages are maintained using the GNU Gettext tools and file formats, in combination with the Zanata web service.
python-zanata-client is required in order to use make to pull/push translations from/to Zanata server.
The libvirt GIT repository does NOT store the master "libvirt.pot" file, nor does it store full "po" files for translations. The master "libvirt.pot" file can be generated at any time using
make libvirt.pot
The translations are kept in minimized files that are the same file format as normal po files but with all redundant information stripped and messages re-ordered. The key differences between the ".mini.po" files in GIT and the full ".po" files are
- msgids with no current translation are omitted
- msgids are sorted in alphabetical order not source file order
- msgids with a msgstr marked "fuzzy" are discarded
- source file locations are omitted
The full po files can be created at any time using
make update-po
This merges the "libvirt.pot" with the "$LANG.mini.po" for each language, to create the "$LANG.po" files. These are included in the release archives created by "make dist".
When a full po file is updated, changes can be propagated back into the minimized po files using
make update-mini-po
Note, however, that this is generally not something that should be run by developers normally, as it is triggered by 'make pull-po' when refreshing content from Zanata.
The translation of libvirt messages has been outsourced to the Fedora translation team using the Zanata web service:
https://fedora.zanata.org/project/view/libvirt
As such, changes to translations will generally NOT be accepted as patches directly to libvirt GIT. Any changes made to "$LANG.mini.po" files in libvirt GIT will be overwritten and lost the next time content is imported from Zanata.
The master "libvirt.pot" file is periodically pushed to Zanata to provide the translation team with content changes, using
make push-pot
New translated text is then periodically pulled down from Zanata to update the minimized po files, using
make pull-po
Sometimes the translators make mistakes, most commonly with handling printf format specifiers. The "pull-po" command re-generates the .gmo files to try to identify such mistakes. If a mistake is made, the broken msgstr should be deleted in the local "$LANG.mini.po" file, and the Zanata web interface used to reject the translation so that the broken msgstr isn't pulled down next time.
After pulling down new content the diff should be examined to look for any obvious mistakes that are not caught automatically. There have been bugs in Zanata tools which caused messges to go missing, so pay particular attention to diffs showing deletions where the msgid still exists in libvirt.pot