arb2po

Converts ARB (Application Resource Bundle) files to Gettext PO format.

ARB is a JSON-based localization format used by Flutter applications.

Usage

arb2po [options] <arb> <po>

Where:

<arb>	is a valid .arb file or directory of those files
<po>	is a directory of PO or POT files

Options (arb2po):

--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 ARB 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 ARB format

-S, --timestamp

skip conversion if the output file has newer timestamp

-P, --pot

output PO Templates (.pot) rather than PO files (.po)

--duplicates=DUPLICATESTYLE

what to do with duplicate strings (identical source text): merge, msgctxt (default: ‘msgctxt’)

Examples

This example shows how to convert ARB files used in a Flutter project.

First, create a POT file:

arb2po -P app_en.arb app.pot

The English ARB file is converted to a Gettext POT file. ARB metadata entries (@@locale, @@last_modified, etc.) are automatically filtered out, and @key description fields are preserved as developer comments in the resulting PO or POT file. To recover existing translations, run:

arb2po -t app_en.arb app_ca.arb ca.po

Using the English ARB file as a template and an existing translated ARB file, this creates a PO file with existing translations.

To update translations, regenerate the POT file and use pot2po to bring translations up to date.