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Chapter 2. Unix Commands > msgfmt
msgfmt [options]pofiles
Solaris and GNU/Linux only. msgfmt translates "portable object files" (.po files) into loadable message files that can be used by a running application via the gettext (3C) and dgettext (3C) library functions.
Portable object files are created using xgettext from the original C source code files. A translator then edits the .po file, providing translations of each string (or "message") in the source program. The format is described in the msgfmt (1) manpage.
Once compiled by msgfmt, the running program uses the translations for its output when the locale is set up appropriately.
The Solaris version of this command has picked up some features from the GNU version; see gettext for more discussion of this fact and for a URL reference. The Solaris version can create both Solaris format output files and GNU format output files.
