l10n-lint

Svenska

l10n-lint granskar gettext-PO, Qt-TS, Fluent, XLIFF 1.2/2.x, JSON-kataloger, Dart/Flutter-ARB-filer, Microsoft ResX-filer och CUPS/libcups .strings-kataloger. Det hittar tomma översättningar, syntaxfel, skillnader i platshållare och pluraler, felaktig formatering, brutna taggar och URL:er. Kod, kommandon, filnamn, funktionsnamn och identifierliknande variabelnamn i DocBook-markup kontrolleras också mot källtexten. Använd det i CI eller med GTK-gränssnittet vid manuell granskning.

Installera och köra

Installera den publicerade Python-versionen från PyPI:

python -m pip install l10n-lint
l10n-lint translations/sv.po

Alternativt kan du köra den aktuella källkoden:

git clone https://github.com/yeager/l10n-lint
cd l10n-lint
python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e .
l10n-lint translations/sv.po

Kör l10n-lint ./po/ för en katalog, l10n-lint --help för samtliga alternativ och l10n-lint --list-rules för regelidentifierare och nivåer.

Svensk kvalitetskontroll

Kör l10n-lint först för katalogstruktur, formatsträngar, markup och URL:er. Granska sedan med svlang, hunspell-sv, swedish-foss-terminology och swedish-tm. Kontrollera varje träff i dess gränssnittskontext. Svenska regler omfattar ingen komma omedelbart före och, korrekt skiljeteckensmellanrum, citattecken, utelämningstecknet …, procentformat, siffergruppering och ordet till i intervall. Tankstreck flaggas i svenska måltexter när de inte måste bevaras från källans syntax eller layout. Crowdin-text före | är metadata och får inte synas i måltexten. Invarianta svenska pluraler som byte, träd och resultat flaggas inte som fel bara för att singular och plural har samma form. Plattformsspecifika kortkommandon som ⌘ + Backspace behandlas som syntax och flaggar inte som oöversatt text. Även objekt godtas som invariant plural, och den svenska skrivningen Obs! godtas för engelska Note:.

Betydelse, tilltal, stilnivå och kontextberoende facktermer kräver alltid mänsklig granskning.

English reference

l10n-lint checks gettext PO, Qt TS, Fluent, XLIFF 1.2/2.x, JSON translation catalogs, Dart/Flutter ARB files, Microsoft ResX files, and CUPS/libcups .strings catalogs for missing translations, invalid syntax, placeholder mismatches, plural errors and inconsistent formatting. It also preserves executable DocBook content such as code, commands, filenames, function names and identifiers. Use the command line in CI or the GTK4 desktop interface for interactive review. Swedish-specific checks cover spelling patterns, terminology and localization conventions. The identical-plural diagnostic accepts common invariant Swedish forms such as byte, träd, and resultat. Platform keyboard shortcuts such as ⌘ + Backspace are treated as syntax, not untranslated prose. objekt is also accepted as an invariant plural, and Swedish Obs! is accepted for the English cue Note:.

Download 1.23.29 · Changelog · Report a bug

Version 1.23.0 adds Dart/Flutter ARB catalogs, protects more DocBook content and improves Swedish time checks. Version 1.22.6 recognizes Swedish idiomatic number equivalents and localized grouped thousands. Version 1.22.1 accepts Swedish cardinal words through twelve in numerical checks, and version 1.22.0 adds Swedish typography and number-format diagnostics.

Features

• Validate PO/TS/Fluent/XLIFF/JSON/ARB/ResX/.strings syntax, plural forms, printf/Python/Qt placeholders, tags, whitespace and URLs.
• Share diagnostic IDs and input handling between the CLI and GTK4 interface.
• Scan local files, directories, remote PO/TS/Fluent/XLIFF/JSON/ARB/ResX/.strings URLs and GitHub repositories.
• Select individual rules or groups, configure severities and load custom TSV glossaries.
• Store project settings in pyproject.toml and baseline existing findings.
• Compare translations with a source catalog to find missing or obsolete entries.
• Preview and apply conservative whitespace and ellipsis fixes to local PO files.
• Export text, JSON, HTML, GNU, GitHub Actions annotations or SARIF 2.1.0.

Installation

Install the current release

Release 1.23.29 records the current annotated tag and release notes. Build from the checked-out source below to use this exact revision. Package repositories and PyPI can lag behind the GitHub release.

APT repository (Debian/Ubuntu)

Install the repository's current public key and scope it to this source:

key_file=$(mktemp)
curl -fsSL https://yeager.github.io/debian-repo/yeager-repo-key.asc -o "$key_file" &&
  sudo install -D -m 0644 "$key_file" /etc/apt/keyrings/yeager-l10n.asc
rm -f "$key_file"
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/yeager-l10n.asc] https://yeager.github.io/debian-repo ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yeager-l10n.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install l10n-lint

This replaces the earlier stable main entry in yeager-l10n.list. If you put that entry in another file, replace it there instead; keep only one Yeager source definition. The obsolete yeager-l10n.gpg URL no longer exists. The current key's primary fingerprint is 7CEE83C9C621B18667DD1BFECAED4975DAB053A8; its signing subkey is 37986EFBED62D629C0CF268EE318C7DE3DA87C5B (the key reported in issue #2).

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/yeager/l10n-lint
cd l10n-lint
python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e .

Usage

Basic usage:

# Lint a single file
l10n-lint translations/sv.po

# Lint a directory recursively
l10n-lint ./po/

# Open the GTK4 interface
l10n-lint-gtk

# Lint a GitHub repository
l10n-lint --github yeager/l10n-lint

Advanced options:

# Generate HTML report
l10n-lint -f html -o report.html ./translations/

# JSON output for CI pipelines
l10n-lint -f json -o results.json ./translations/

# SARIF output for code-scanning integrations
l10n-lint -f sarif -o results.sarif ./translations/

# Run only specific checks
l10n-lint --checks terminology,false-friends,consistency sv.po

# CI mode (exit code only)
l10n-lint --check --strict .

The target language is detected from PO metadata or Qt TS attributes, with a filename fallback for PO files. Use --language sv to override detection when needed.

See the manual or CLI help for complete options:

man l10n-lint
l10n-lint --help

Swedish review workflow

Run l10n-lint first for catalog structure, placeholders, markup, URLs and format. Follow with svlang for style, hunspell-sv for spelling, swedish-foss-terminology for established terms and swedish-tm for context-aware suggestions. Never accept an automatic finding without reading source and target in their product context.

Swedish checks include the project rule against a comma directly before och, punctuation spacing, Swedish quotation marks, … rather than three dots, percent formatting, digit grouping and the word till in ranges. Em dashes are flagged in Swedish targets unless the source syntax or layout requires the same character. A Crowdin prefix before | is metadata and must not be translated or retained in visible text. Meaning, address, register and context-sensitive terminology always need manual review.

Checks and rule selection

Use l10n-lint --list-rules for every diagnostic ID, default severity and language scope. These are some useful rule groups and individual IDs:

Format flags and documentation text

Explicit c-format and python-format flags enable full printf validation, including space flags such as % d. Without those flags, only clear conversion syntax is inferred: prose such as 100% coverage or 50 % anger is not a printf argument. Real %s, positional/named arguments and width/precision specifications are still checked. Use an explicit flag for ambiguous cases such as a conversion immediately after a numeric literal. Attached integer time units such as %ds are recognized. Other literal suffixes such as %iHz are accepted when the complete typed argument contracts match on both sides. Prose percentages such as 2% change are ignored even with a c-format flag. Standalone JSON keys are identifiers, so their spelling is not used as a source placeholder contract; explicit JSON source/translation entries are still checked.

Python-format checks ignore reST :math: roles (including suffix role syntax) and inline literal brace delimiters such as ``{`` and ``}``. Complete fields such as ``{name}`` and real placeholders outside those constructs remain checked, even in a message that also contains mathematics. These exclusions affect format parsing only; the original text is retained for other checks and reports.

Swedish terminology sources

The built-in Swedish rules are deliberately conservative. For IT terms, curated terms and recommendations use Computer Swedens IT-ord as the first reference source. SAOL, SO and SAOB, TEPA, IATE, Rikstermbanken and ISOF's guidance on fackspråk och terminologi then support general Swedish, public-sector terminology and domains outside IT, together with project documentation and the configured project glossary. These sources guide human review; l10n-lint does not scrape or redistribute their data.

For Swedish compounds, three equal consecutive letters are usually flagged as a likely spelling error. Established words with retained triple consonants, such as processstatus, are exempt. Intentional dialogue exclamations, date-format tokens and technical source tokens remain exempt.

Context for Swedish checks

Date-format tokens such as yyyy in dd/mm/yyyy are excluded from spelling heuristics. Date and placeholder checks still run on the original text.

The View → Visa menu recommendation requires an explicit menu or menubar context in PO msgctxt or the Qt TS context/comment. Without that evidence, View may be a noun, for example a color-management view translated as Vy. The linje → rad recommendation requires a command-line or code/text-line context; geometric lines and unrelated compounds such as riktlinjer are ignored. Likewise, File → Arkiv applies only where PO msgctxt or Qt TS context/comment identifies a menu. A label or command category may correctly use Fil. Empty Qt TS source and translation pairs are structural keys and are ignored.

Output Formats

Project configuration

The CLI reads [tool.l10n-lint] from the nearest pyproject.toml, searching from the current working directory upwards. Use --config FILE to select one explicitly. Command-line values override configuration values. Paths in the configuration are relative to that TOML file; command-line paths are relative to the working directory.

[tool.l10n-lint]
language = "sv"
checks = ["placeholders", "whitespace", "terminology", "glossary"]
exclude = ["vendor/**", "generated/**"]
glossary = "translations/glossary.tsv"
translation-memory = "translations/memory.json"
forbidden-terms = ["Dokumentera"]
required-terms = [{ source = "Save", target = "Spara", context = "menu" }]
max-length = 500
length-ratio = 3.0
max-errors = 0
max-warnings = 0
strict = true
json-format = "auto"

[tool.l10n-lint.severity]
terminology = "warning"
glossary = "error"

--list-rules prints all diagnostic IDs, default severities and language scopes. --checks selects only the listed rules or groups. Groups include placeholders, length, whitespace, plural-forms and accelerators. --disable and --skip-checks accept the same names. Unknown names are errors. Operational errors (invalid syntax, unreadable/missing paths, incomplete network fetches and invalid references) cannot be disabled. An empty scan also fails, including when exclusions remove every input. Repeated local paths are deduplicated. Directory discovery accepts .po, .ts, .xlf, .xliff, .json and .strings case-insensitively.

XLIFF, JSON and CUPS strings catalogs

XLIFF support covers XLIFF 1.2 trans-unit elements and XLIFF 2.x unit/segment elements. The linter reads the target language, skips units marked translate="no", and preserves inline placeholders expressed through equiv-text or equiv.

JSON support accepts nested key/value catalogs, where the leaf key is the source text, and explicit entries with source plus target, translation, or value. Use @locale, locale, targetLanguage, or target_language for language metadata. Entries marked translate: false or translatable: false are skipped. Plural objects with CLDR forms such as one and other are validated form by form. Transifex JSON exports with string, context, developer_comment, nullable character_limit, and numeric plural indexes are recognized as translation entries; metadata is ignored.

Svenska: Transifex-exporter med fälten string, context, developer_comment, valfria character_limit och numeriska pluralindex behandlas som översättningsposter. Metadata granskas inte som översättningstext.

Set json-format = "nested" to allow only nested key/value catalogs, or json-format = "entries" to allow only explicit source/target entries. This policy is useful when a repository also contains non-localization JSON files.

CUPS/libcups .strings catalogs use the English source as the quoted key and the target text as the quoted value. l10n-lint validates their syntax and runs the ordinary placeholder, whitespace, punctuation and Swedish-style checks on each key/value pair.

{
  "@locale": "sv",
  "menu": {"Save %s": "Spara %s"}
}

A glossary contains two or three tab-separated fields per line: wrong<TAB>correct[<TAB>context]. Blank lines and lines beginning with # are ignored. Matching is case-insensitive at word boundaries; context is explanatory text in the diagnostic. Missing or malformed glossary files fail the command. Custom glossaries apply to every target language; built-in Swedish terminology and spelling checks run only for Swedish.

Exit codes: 0 when findings are within the configured thresholds, 1 when warnings exceed --max-warnings, 2 when errors exceed --max-errors or an operational error occurs. --strict makes excess warnings return 2 as well. Informational findings do not fail a run. --check suppresses normal output. Invalid options/configuration still produce an error on stderr. --skip-fuzzy suppresses the fuzzy diagnostic; it does not skip validation of those entries.

Efficient review workflows

Use --changed BASE in a pull-request job to lint only localization files changed since a Git revision, for example l10n-lint --changed origin/main --format github. Use translation-memory for cross-catalog consistency, required-terms and forbidden-terms for domain policy, and a JSON object of source-to-translation string pairs for the memory file. The linter also reports introduced bidi controls, non-NFC text, and missing CLDR plural categories in JSON plural objects.

Baselines: report only new findings

# Save existing findings. This command still returns the normal lint exit code.
l10n-lint --write-baseline l10n-baseline.json translations/

# Fail only for findings exceeding the recorded baseline.
l10n-lint --baseline l10n-baseline.json translations/

Baselines include project-relative file identity, rule, severity, diagnostic message and context, with occurrence counts. They ignore physical line numbers, so moving an unchanged entry normally preserves its baseline. New duplicate occurrences remain visible. Changes to diagnostic text, severity, translation context or UI language may require baseline regeneration. Use the same project root and UI language in developer and CI runs. Syntax/read/network failures are never baselined. Commit the baseline for review; do not regenerate it on every CI run. baseline = "l10n-baseline.json" is also supported in configuration.

Compare translations with a source catalog

l10n-lint --reference messages.pot po/sv.po
l10n-lint --reference source.ts translations/sv.ts
l10n-lint --reference source.xlf translations/sv.xlf
l10n-lint --reference app_en.arb app_sv.arb

PO comparison keys include msgctxt and msgid; Qt keys use explicit IDs or context, disambiguation comment and source text. Missing entries, entries absent from the reference, and changed plural/source definitions are reported separately. Obsolete PO and vanished/obsolete Qt entries are excluded. One reference applies to every input in the command; use separate runs for different domains. Reference and target formats must match (.pot/.po, .ts, .xlf/.xliff, or .json).

Preview and apply conservative fixes

# Print a unified diff on stderr without changing files.
l10n-lint --fix whitespace,ellipsis po/sv.po

# Print the diff, write the changes, and lint the resulting files.
l10n-lint --fix whitespace,ellipsis --apply po/sv.po

Fixes currently support local UTF-8 PO files. They touch translation fields only, skip headers and fuzzy/obsolete entries, and preserve unrelated comments, source strings, newline style and file permissions. Whitespace fixes remove extra boundary spaces/tabs only when the source has no boundary whitespace. Ellipsis fixes convert a trailing ... to … only when the source also ends in an ellipsis. Interior spaces and meaningful source boundary whitespace are preserved. Multiline translation fields that change may be serialized onto one line. Each write is atomic; changed files and symlinks are rejected. Multi-file application is not a transaction, so review the preview before --apply.

SARIF and CI

l10n-lint -f sarif -o l10n-results.sarif translations/

SARIF 2.1.0 reports include diagnostic rule IDs, severity and source locations. Text, JSON, HTML, GNU and GitHub Actions output remain available. GitHub annotation properties and messages are escaped; informational findings use notice.

GitHub repository scans discover the repository's actual default branch and fetch all files from the same tree revision. Download failures and truncated GitHub trees fail the scan instead of silently producing partial success.

The GTK frontend uses the same input pipeline and rule IDs as the CLI, including URL/GitHub loading, plural checks and operational errors. CLI project baselines, reference comparison, SARIF export and fix commands are currently CLI workflows; GTK retains its own preferences.

Development and verification

python -m pip install '.[test]'
python -m pytest -q
python -m build

CI runs regression tests on Python 3.9, 3.11 and 3.14 and installs the built wheel into a fresh environment for CLI smoke tests outside the checkout. GNU gettext validates the documentation fixtures. A separate Xvfb job opens the GTK window/preferences and displays a URL lint result. Debian and RPM packages also pass CLI checks against the release source.

For local GTK verification, install the system GTK dependencies and Xvfb, then run:

xvfb-run -a /usr/bin/python3 tests/gtk_smoke.py

Check desktop integration when changing widgets.

Translation

Translations are managed on Transifex: https://app.transifex.com/danielnylander/l10n-lint/

Currently supported: Swedish, Danish, German, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian Bokmål, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil)

Contributions welcome!

Changelog

• 1.21.7: Preserve natural Swedish word order in boundary and numeric checks
• 1.21.2: Add incremental review, project policy and CLDR/Unicode validation
• 1.20.2: Recognize year tokens in typo checks; require context for ambiguous Swedish terminology
• 1.20.1: Fix false format errors in percentage prose and reST documentation; repair APT setup
• 1.20.0: Reliable parsing, shared rules, project configuration, baselines, catalog comparison, previewed fixes and SARIF
• 1.19.0: Enhanced check accuracy
• 1.17.0: Added terminology intelligence, domain-specific rules, false friends detection
• 1.16.0: 76% reduction in false positives (26,576 → 6,308 issues)
• 1.15.x: GTK4 GUI, GitHub integration, custom glossaries
• 1.14.x: Multiple output formats, CI integration

See CHANGELOG.md for the full release history.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later

Author

Daniel Nylander (daniel@danielnylander.se)