DEBCONF-GETLANG(1)

💖 DEBCONF-GETLANG 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because we're talking about debconf-getlang(1) — the little utility that pulls a language out of a templates file. she's giving translation-wrangler energy and honestly? iconic. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

debconf-getlang — extract a language from a templates file 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

 debconf-getlang lang master [translation]
 debconf-getlang --stats master translation [...]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

🚨 note bestie: this utility is deprecated! you should switch to using the po-debconf package instead. no cap. she's retired, she's living her best life, go use the new thing. 💀

so what does she even do? this program helps you make and manage translations of debconf templates. and there are basically three situations where you'd call her:

1. a translation is just being started 🌱 you want to hand the translator a file they can actually work on — one that has the English fields from your templates file, plus blank Field-ll fields for the target language that they can fill in.

to do this, run the program with the first parameter being the code for the language you're translating to, and the second parameter being the filename of the English templates file.

2. a translation is well under way 🌊 you've changed some English text, or added more items to your templates file, and you want to send the translators a file with the English text plus their current translations. (or maybe you're the translator and you want to generate such a file for your own use — main character behaviour, love that for you.)

to accomplish this, run the program with the first parameter being the code for the language that is being translated to, the second parameter being the filename of the master English templates file, and the third parameter being the filename of the current translated file.

when you run it this way, the program is smart enough to notice fuzzy translations. for example, a fuzzy Description will be output as Description-<lang>-fuzzy, and a new, blank Description-<lang> will be added. translators should remove the -fuzzy fields as they correct the fuzzy translations. 👑

3. checking the status of a translation 🔍 to check the status of a translation, use the --status flag, and pass the english template file as the first parameter, and all the other translated templates after that. it will output statistics for each of them. for example:

  debconf-getlang --stats debian/templates debian/templates.*

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🎀 NOTE 🎀

heads up: the text in the generated templates may be word-wrapped by debconf. so if the lines look a little rearranged, that's just debconf doing her thing, don't panic. 🫶

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• debconf-mergetemplate(1) — go say hi, she's the sibling 💜

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> — legend, icon, the moment. 🌟

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and that's the whole vibe check, bestie! this page came from the Debconf manual set, section 1, dated 2026-02-16 — so yeah, she's certified and timestamped. mwah 💋 🍓 🧚