How can I extract all localizable strings from all XIB files into one file?

Question

I am looking for a way of extracting all localizable strings from .xib files and have all of them saved in a single file.

Probably this involves ibtool but I was not able to determine a way of merging all these in only one translation dictionary (could be .strings, .plist or something else).

@Lukasz not a fully one, but I will definitely post an answer when I have a solution. — sorin, Jun 07 '11 at 09:15

Lukasz · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-13T13:58:49.600

38

Open terminal and cd to the root directory of the project (or directory where you store all XIB files) and type in this command:

find . -name \*.xib | xargs -t -I '{}' ibtool --generate-strings-file '{}'.txt '{}'

The magic is the find and xargs commands working together. -I option generates placeholder. -t is just for verbose output (you see what commands has been generated and executed). It generates txts files with the same name as xib files in the same directory. This command can be improved to concatenate output into one file but still is a good starting point.

Joining them together:

You can concatenate those freshly created files into one using similar terminal command:

find . -name \*.xib.txt | xargs -t -I '{}' cat '{}' > ./xib-strings-concatenated.txt

This command will put all strings into one file xib-strings-concatenated.txt in root directory.

You can delete generated partial files (if you want) using find and xargs again:

find . -name \*.xib.txt | xargs -t -I '{}' rm -f '{}'

edited Oct 13 '11 at 13:58

answered Oct 13 '11 at 13:31

Lukasz

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Great answer. Is there a web resource where I can learn how to make such command line tools? – Tushar Koul Apr 28 '14 at 06:38
yes..I was hoping you could point me to a concrete resource that you always refer to. Anyways, I guess I was feeling too lazy to google :D – Tushar Koul Apr 28 '14 at 09:25
The first command does not list attributed strings. Please suggest how to fix this? – AUK4SO Jul 09 '14 at 12:19
@AUK4SO: since ibtool does the main job here and it does not support attributes strings yet, it may required different approach. – Lukasz Sep 12 '14 at 09:53
is there a way to put them back ? @Lukasz – Teja Nandamuri Mar 24 '16 at 13:49
If I have a localised version of file of concatenated.txt, how can I write it to all xibs ? @Lukasz – Teja Nandamuri Mar 24 '16 at 13:51

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '15 at 15:14

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this is a lot easier now.

in xcode, select your project (not a target)

then use menu/editor/export for localisation

xcode will output an xliff file with all localisable strings from your entire project.

answered Jan 14 '15 at 15:14

Confused Vorlon

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does this only take from xibs ? or from .m files too ? – Teja Nandamuri Mar 24 '16 at 13:58
Does it include all possible strings from xib or storyboards? F.ex: titles for all button states? – Lukasz Mar 24 '16 at 14:43

How can I extract all localizable strings from all XIB files into one file?

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