MSGEXEC(1)

📦
version 1.0 · 11 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu stonking

💖 MSGEXEC 💖

okay bestie, welcome to msgexec, a User Commands girlie from the GNU gettext-tools 1.0 era (January 2026, she's fresh ✨). She processes translations of a message catalog, and honestly? iconic behaviour. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

msgexec — process translations of message catalog 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

msgexec [OPTION] COMMAND [COMMAND-OPTION]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the vibe: msgexec applies a command to all translations of a translation catalog. The COMMAND can be literally any program that reads a translation from standard input. She invokes it once for each translation. Its output becomes msgexec's output. And msgexec's return code? It's the maximum return code across all invocations — she's taking the crown of the worst outcome, no cap 👑

There's also a special builtin command called 0 (yes, just the digit zero, main character energy) that outputs the translation, followed by a null byte. The output of msgexec 0 is suitable as input for xargs -0. iykyk 💀

🎀 Command input 🎀

  • --newline — add newline at the end of input 🌈
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. fr fr, don't skip them 🙈

🍓 Input file location 🍓

  • -i, --input=INPUTFILE — input PO file 💖
  • -D, --directory=DIRECTORY — add DIRECTORY to list for input files search 🌸

If no input file is given, or if it is -, standard input is read. simple as that bestie ✨

🧚 Input file syntax 🧚

  • -P, --properties-input — input file is in Java .properties syntax 💜
  • --stringtable-input — input file is in NeXTstep/GNUstep .strings syntax ⭐

👑 Informative output 👑

  • -h, --help — display this help and exit 🫶
  • -V, --version — output version information and exit 🌟

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Written by Bruno Haible. legend behaviour, we love to see it 😭

🔥 REPORTING BUGS 🔥

Found a bug? spill it in the bug tracker at <https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gettext> or email <bug-gettext@gnu.org>. not me encouraging you to report bugs, but like, do it 💅

Copyright © 2001-2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. periodt 💀

🦄 SEE ALSO 🦄

The full documentation for msgexec is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and msgexec programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info msgexec

should give you access to the complete manual. go read her, she ate 📚✨

and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀 this was GNU gettext-tools 1.0, January 2026, and the manual page title was MSGEXEC(1) in case you were wondering 🦋 mwah, bye 💖

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