MSGUNIQ(1)

💅 MSGUNIQ(1) — the unify-duplicate-translations girlie 💅

okay so bestie, this is the manual for msguniq, a User Command, and it's about to become your new hyperfixation. sit down, grab a boba, and let's unify some duplicate translations ✨

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🦋 NAME 🦋

msguniq — unify duplicate translations in a message catalog. that's the whole vibe. duplicates? gone. unified? slay.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

msguniq [OPTION] [INPUTFILE]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So what does she do? She unifies duplicate translations in a translation catalog 💖. She finds duplicate translations of the same message ID. And here's the tea: those duplicates are invalid input for other programs like msgfmt, msgmerge or msgcat. so like, they're not just annoying, they're actually breaking things 😭

By default, duplicates get merged together. But if you use the --repeated option? Only duplicates are output and all the other messages get discarded 🙈. Comments and extracted comments get cumulated — except if --use-first is specified, then they're taken from the first translation. File positions get cumulated too. And when you use the --unique option, duplicates are just... discarded. bye bestie 👋

mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. yes this is real, no this is not a drill 💀

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

📁 Input file location

• INPUTFILE — the input PO file, bestie
• -D, --directory=DIRECTORY — adds DIRECTORY to the list for input files search

if no input file is given, or if it's -, standard input is read 👑

💾 Output file location

• -o, --output-file=FILE — write output to the specified file

the results get written to standard output if no output file is specified, or if it's - 🌈

🔍 Message selection

• -d, --repeated — print only duplicates
• -u, --unique — print only unique messages, discard duplicates

🧚 Input file syntax

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

🎨 Output details

• -t, --to-code=NAME — encoding for output
• --use-first — use the first available translation for each message, don't merge several translations
• --color — use colors and other text attributes always
• --color=WHEN — use colors and other text attributes if WHEN. WHEN may be 'always', 'never', 'auto', or 'html' 💅
• --style=STYLEFILE — specify CSS style rule file for --color
• -e, --no-escape — do not use C escapes in output (default)
• -E, --escape — use C escapes in output, no extended chars
• --force-po — write PO file even if empty
• -i, --indent — write the .po file using indented style
• --no-location — do not write '#: filename:line' lines
• -n, --add-location — generate '#: filename:line' lines (default)
• --strict — write out strict Uniforum conforming .po file
• -p, --properties-output — write out a Java .properties file
• --stringtable-output — write out a NeXTstep/GNUstep .strings file
• -w, --width=NUMBER — set output page width
• --no-wrap — do not break long message lines, longer than the output page width, into several lines
• -s, --sort-output — generate sorted output
• -F, --sort-by-file — sort output by file location

📢 Informative output

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

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Bruno Haible. periodt. 💜

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🫶 REPORTING BUGS 🫶

Found a bug? (rude of it, honestly.) Report bugs in the bug tracker at <https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gettext> or by email to <bug-gettext@gnu.org> 📬

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⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐

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. (not me warning you about warranties, but here we are 💀)

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

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

info msguniq

should give you access to the complete manual 🦋

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you're officially educated 💖 this was the MSGUNIQ(1) manual from GNU gettext-tools 1.0, dated January 2026 — and honestly? iconic. go unify some duplicates, you main character 🎀✨