File: gawk.info,  Node: String Extraction,  Next: Printf Ordering,  Up: Translator i18n

13.4.1 Extracting Marked Strings
--------------------------------

Once your 'awk' program is working, and all the strings have been marked
and you've set (and perhaps bound) the text domain, it is time to
produce translations.  First, use the '--gen-pot' command-line option to
create the initial '.pot' file:

     gawk --gen-pot -f guide.awk > guide.pot

   When run with '--gen-pot', 'gawk' does not execute your program.
Instead, it parses it as usual and prints all marked strings to standard
output in the format of a GNU 'gettext' Portable Object file.  Also
included in the output are any constant strings that appear as the first
argument to 'dcgettext()' or as the first and second argument to
'dcngettext()'.(1)  You should distribute the generated '.pot' file with
your 'awk' program; translators will eventually use it to provide you
translations that you can also then distribute.  *Note I18N Example::
for the full list of steps to go through to create and test translations
for 'guide'.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) The 'xgettext' utility that comes with GNU 'gettext' can handle
'.awk' files.