arb2po

Convert ARB file to PO file

ARB format is being used in flutter intl package but tooling support for it is minimal. This hackish script can convert it to the more popular gettext PO format for localization work

Compatibility

• plural is partially supported (see Warning)
• gender is not supported

Usage

arb2po.py SRC_ARB [LOCALIZED_ARB]

• SRC_ARB
  • The untranslated ARB file
• LOCALIZED_ARB
  • Localized ARB file. If available, the resulting PO file will contain translated string from this file

po2arb.py PO

• PO
  • The translated PO file

Example

arb2po.py app_en.arb app_es.arb > es.po
po2arb.py es.po > app_es.arb

Warning

As mentioned, this script is pretty hackish, so beware of the following limitations:

• plural is supported when the whole string is inside the plural block but not when used inline
  • Supported: "{p, plural, =1{some a text} other{some b text}}"
  • NOT supported: "some {p, plural, =1{a} other{b}} text"
• There will always be 4 msgstr for plural, namely zero, one, two and other. Leave the string empty for those not applicable to your language
  • The 4 msgstr translate to =0{}, =1{}, =2{}, other{} respectively in ARB
  • For example, you would leave msgstr[0] and msgstr[2] empty for English
  • It's useless to change the Plural-Forms header, we don't read that
• PO file generated by arb2po does conform to the spec but the content is unusual
  • You may receive warnings from your tools
• po2arb ONLY supports converting a PO file created by arb2po
  • Don't feed a native PO file and expecting it to work. It won't