.. _mo:
.. _gettext_mo:

Gettext .mo
***********

The Gettext .mo (Machine Object) file is a compiled :doc:`Gettext PO <po>`
file.  In execution Gettext enabled programs retrieve translations from the .mo
file.  The file contains arrays for the English and the translations, an
optional hash can speed up the access to the translations.

.. _mo#conformance:

Conformance
===========

The toolkit can create .mo files from PO or XLIFF files, handling plurals and
msgctxt.  It can also read .mo files, allowing counting, etc and also allowing
the .mo files to act as a translation memory.

.. versionchanged:: 1.2
   The hash table is also generated (the Gettext .mo files works fine without
   it). Due to slight differences in the construction of the hashing, the
   generated files are not identical to those generated by msgfmt, but they
   should be functionally equivalent and 100% usable. :issue:`Issue 326 <326>`
   tracked the implementation of the hashing. The hash is platform dependent.