I'm translating a wordpress site and need more clarity around these terms. Can anyone please lend a hand with some definitions and differences between .po .mo and .pot files with wordpress localization?
I'm translating a wordpress site and need more clarity around these terms. Can anyone please lend a hand with some definitions and differences between .po .mo and .pot files with wordpress localization?
Share Improve this question edited Oct 15, 2020 at 6:30 Jesse Nickles 7357 silver badges19 bronze badges asked May 25, 2016 at 15:21 Andrew WelchAndrew Welch 1,0695 gold badges12 silver badges24 bronze badges1 Answer
Reset to default 44These are not any kind of WP's own format but rather just gettext file types which WP implements.
Translate Handbook has following definitions in its Glossary:
MO files: MO, or Machine Object is a binary data file that contains object data referenced by a program. It is typically used to translate program code, and may be loaded or imported into the GNU gettext program.
PO files: PO files are the files which contain the actual translations. Each language will have its own PO file, for example, for French there would be a fr.po file, for german there would be a de.po, for American English there might be en-US.po.
POT file: POT files are the template files for PO files. They will have all the translation strings left empty. A POT file is essentially an empty PO file without the translations, with just the original strings.
The technical details of file formats can be found in gettext documentation:
- The Format of PO Files
- The Format of GNU MO Files