The argparse module "automatically generates help and usage messages". I can give Non-English names to the arguments and provide Non-English help texts; but the help output then becomes a mixture of at least two languages, because terms like usage
, positional arguments
, optional arguments
and show this help message and exit
are automatically generated in English.
How can I replace this English output with translations?
Preferably, I would like to provide the translations within the script, so that the script generates the same output wherever it is started.
Edit: Based on the answer by Jon-Eric, here an example with his solution:
import gettext
def Übersetzung(Text):
Text = Text.replace("usage", "Verwendung")
Text = Text.replace("show this help message and exit",
"zeige diese Hilfe an und tue nichts weiteres")
Text = Text.replace("error:", "Fehler:")
Text = Text.replace("the following arguments are required:",
"Die folgenden Argumente müssen angegeben werden:")
return Text
gettext.gettext = Übersetzung
import argparse
Parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
Parser.add_argument("Eingabe")
Argumente = Parser.parse_args()
print(Argumente.Eingabe)
saved as Beispiel.py
gives with python3 Beispiel.py -h
the following help output:
Verwendung: Beispiel.py [-h] Eingabe
positional arguments:
Eingabe
optional arguments:
-h, --help zeige diese Hilfe an und tue nichts weiteres
One way, from this post by Peter Otten:
I don't know much about gettext, but the following suggests that most strings in argparse are properly wrapped:
$ cat localize_argparse.py import gettext def my_gettext(s): return s.upper() gettext.gettext = my_gettext import argparse if __name__ == "__main__": parser = argparse.ArgumentParser() parser.add_argument("-V", action="version") args = parser.parse_args() $ python localize_argparse.py -h USAGE: localize_argparse.py [-h] [-V] OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS: -h, --help SHOW THIS HELP MESSAGE AND EXIT -V show program's version number and exit
The workaround for the "-V" option would be to add the help message explicitly
parser.add_argument("-V", ..., help=_("show..."))
You still have to provide all translations yourself.