PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)

💖 PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO 💖

okay bestie, so this is a page from the po-debconf manual, section 1 (that's the "user commands" section, iykyk), and it's called podebconf-display-po. it does exactly what the name says and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

podebconf-display-po — display content of a PO file in a debconf interface

like. it shows you your PO file. inside debconf. that's the whole vibe. 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

podebconf-display-po [-h] [-f FRONTEND] file.po

that's it, that's the whole invocation, no cap. one file.po, two optional flags, and you're off 🌸

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the tea, bestie. with literally any other localization work, translators are supposed to test their translations by actually running the program they're working on. sounds reasonable, right? 🥲

but with complicated configuration scripts? that's a very hard job, because there is no automatic way to have all messages displayed. not one. it's giving impossible.

enter podebconf-display-po, which could lowkey be called the Poor Man Localization Checker for debconf. it:

1. parses a PO file
2. tries to guess what the original templates file did look like 👀
3. displays messages in a debconf interface

and the best part, fr fr — being root is not mandatory, and there is no interaction between podebconf-display-po and system-wide debconf settings. your system config is safe, your sudo is unbothered. we love a low-stakes little tool 🫶

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -h, --help — display a usage summary and exit. the "wait what do i do" button, but make it helpful 💖
• -f, --frontend=FRONTEND — select an alternate debconf frontend. want a different look? different frontend? say less 🎀

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✨ CAVEATS ✨

⚠️ bestie. read this part. i'm serious. this is the part that will absolutely humble you at 2am. ⚠️

• As podebconf-display-po relies on debconf to display questions, your environment must be setup to display localized questions in the language of the PO file. so if you wanna check a translation in another language, you need to temporarily change your settings, e.g.

$ LANGUAGE=de podebconf-display-po de.po

and if the PO file cannot be converted into your current encoding, English strings are displayed instead of the localized ones. 😭 which is not what you want. so you then have to switch to a UTF-8 environment to prevent encoding mismatch. no skips on that one.

• Prior to 0.8.3, po-debconf did only insert the field name in PO files. but some discussions on mailing-lists showed that text format does depend on template type, e.g. string and boolean types are different because the former is an open question and user has to enter some text input, whereas the latter is basically a Yes/No question. authors have to think about it when writing their templates files, but translators also have to be aware. 👑

this is achieved when PO files are generated by po-debconf >= 0.8.3 — template type is inserted in PO files. with older versions, podebconf-display-po has a trivial algorithm to determine original template type, and may sometimes be wrong. so like. check your version, bestie. 🌈

• The dialog frontend, when based upon whiptail, traps system signals and thus podebconf-display-po cannot be interrupted by Ctrl-C when using this frontend. 💀 yes, really. it will simply Not Stop. main character energy, but make it unkillable.

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• debconf(1)

the whole extended universe, right there 🧚

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✨ AUTHOR ✨

       Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>

legend behaviour, honestly 🙈

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okay that's the page!! this one shipped with po-debconf and the version of this page is dated 2025-12-07 — so if you're reading it, that's the timestamp, periodt. now go test your translations, bestie, your strings deserve it 💜🌸✨