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(gawk.info)String Extraction

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Extracting Marked Strings
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   Once your `awk' program is working, and all the strings have been
marked and you've set (and perhaps bound) the text domain, it is time
to produce translations.  First, use the `--gen-po' command-line option
to create the initial `.po' file:

     $ gawk --gen-po -f guide.awk > guide.po

   When run with `--gen-po', `gawk' does not execute your program.
Instead, it parses it as usual and prints all marked strings to
standard output in the format of a GNU `gettext' Portable Object file.
Also included in the output are any constant strings that appear as the
first argument to `dcgettext'.(1) Note: A Simple Internationalization
Example, for the full list of steps to go through to
create and test translations for `guide'.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Eventually, the `xgettext' utility that comes with GNU `gettext'
will be taught to automatically run `gawk --gen-po' for `.awk' files,
freeing the translator from having to do it manually.