gettext-spellchecker

gettext-spellchecker is a Python script which checks the spell of msgid or msgstr strings in a gettext .po or .pot file.

It uses hunspell dictionaries.

It outputs the results to a CSV file or to colored output in the terminal.

Execution

python3 check.py --path /usr/share/hunspell --lang=de_DE -i ../examples/example_simple.po --check=msgstr

Command line options

• --version prints the script version.
• --path the path to hunspell dictionaries. Default: "/usr/share/hunspell".
• --lang the code of the language the strings in the form xx_YY where xx is in ISO 639-1 format and YY in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 format.
• -i, --input the path of the .po or .pot file.
• -o, --output optional path of the output file in CSV format.
• --check which string do you want the script to check: 'msgid' or 'msgstr'. Default="msgid".

Dependencies

hunspell

This script uses hunspell dictionaries.

In Debian and derivatives you install them with apt, for instance:

apt install hunspell-fr

Read your operating system's documentation to know how to install those packages from its repositories, or visit hunspell if you need to compile them by hand.

Python modules

This script depends on the following Python modules:

• argparse
• spellchecker
• colorama
• csv
• polib
• hunspell
• pycountry
• string

You can install them using your operating system package manager or pip in a venv.

Notes

• Sample .po and .pot files are included in the examples directory.
• Why gettext?
  • First and most relevant reason: it uses the full strings in the original language as key, so I don't have to be searching for weird keys such as "page.title.hello" or "item.specification". If one translation doesn't exist, the original key string is used.
  • It's a GNU standard, tried and trusted.

License

Copyright 2025 Rodolfo González González.

Apache License 2.0. Please read the LICENSE file.