The management commands are administration commands provided by Django, Pootle or any external Django app being used with Pootle. You will usually run these commands by issuing pootle <command> [options].
For example, to get information about all available management commands, you will run:
$ pootle help
Note
If you run Pootle from a repository checkout you can use the manage.py file found in the root of the repository.
There are multiple ways to run Pootle, and some of them rely on running WSGI servers that can be reverse proxied to a proper HTTP web server such as nginx or lighttpd.
The Translate Toolkit offers a bundled CherryPy server but there are many more options such as gunicorn, flup, paste, etc.
New in version 2.5.
This command runs the CherryPy server bundled with the Translate Toolkit.
Available options:
The hostname to listen on.
Default: 127.0.0.1.
The TCP port on which the server should listen for new connections.
Default: 8080.
The number of working threads to create.
Default: 1.
The name of the worker process.
Default: socket.gethostname().
Specifies the maximum number of queued connections. This is the the backlog argument to socket.listen().
Default: 5.
These commands will go through all existing projects performing maintenance tasks. The tasks are all available through the web interface but on a project by project or file by file basis.
All commands in this category accept a --directory command line option that limits its action to a path relative to the po/ directory.
Changed in version 2.1.2.
The commands target can be limited in a more flexible way using the --project --language command line options. They can be repeated to indicate multiple languages or projects. If you use both options together it will only match the files that match both languages and projects selected.
If you need to limit the commands to certain files or subdirectories you can use the --path-prefix option, path should be relative to project/language pair.
For example, to refresh_stats for the tutorial project only, run:
$ pootle refresh_stats --project=tutorial
To only refresh a the Zulu and Basque language files within the tutorial project, run:
$ pootle refresh_stats --project=tutorial --language=zu --language=eu
This command will go through all existing projects making sure calculated data is up to date. Running refresh_stats immediately after an install, upgrade or after adding a large number of files will ensure statistics, such as word and suggestion counts, are up to date. On large installations, refresh_stats can take several tens of minutes to fully run through all projects.
refresh_stats will flush existing caches and update the statistics cache.
When the --calculate-checks option is set, quality checks will be recalculated for all existing units in the database. This is a very expensive operation.
This command will save all translations currently in the database to the file system, thereby bringing the files under the PODIRECTORY directory in sync with the Pootle database.
Note
For better performance Pootle keeps translations in database and doesn’t save them to disk except on demand (before file downloads and major file level operations like version control updates).
You must run this command before taking backups or running scripts that modify the translation files directly on the file system, otherwise you might miss out on translations that are in database but not yet saved to disk.
When the --overwrite option is specified, the sync operation will not be conservative and it will overwrite the existing files on disk, making strings obsolete and updating the file’s structure.
With the --skip-missing option, files that are missing on disk will be ignored, and no new files will be created.
New in version 2.5.
With the --modified-since option it is possible to give a change identifier (from the output of latest_change_id) to specifically indicate which changes need to be synced to disk. This will override Pootle on what has/hasn’t been synced to disk, and specifically those changes will be synced. Note that bulk changes (from uploads and version control actions) don’t yet record fine-grained changes, and these will therefore not be synced to disk. However, these should already be on disk, since those actions always sync to disk anyway.
This command is the opposite of sync_stores. It will update the strings in database to reflect what is on disk, as Pootle will not detect changes in the file system on its own.
It will also discover and import any new files added to existing languages within the projects.
You must run this command after running scripts that modify translation files directly on the file system.
update_stores has an extra command line option --keep that will prevent it from overwriting any existing translation in the database, thus only updating new translations, removing obsolete strings and discovering new files and strings.
Changed in version 2.5.1.
Note that --keep doesn’t keep obsolete units around anymore, they are either deleted in case the string is untranslated or marked as obsolete in case the string was translated.
Changed in version 2.5.
Along with --keep, the --modified-since option can be used to control the set of translations that will be updated: translations with a change ID greater than the given value will be kept.
To illustrate the results of these two options, the following table emulates the behavior of a pootle update_stores --modified-since=5 --keep run:
File on disk | DB before (change ID) | DB after (result) |
---|---|---|
New string appeared in existing file | <none> | String added |
Existing string changed in existing file | <none> | String updated |
Existing string changed in existing file | 2 | String updated |
Existing string changed in existing file | 5 | String updated |
Existing string changed in existing file | 8 | String kept |
New string in a new file | <none> | String added |
String removed from the file | 3 | String removed |
String removed from the file | 10 | String removed |
File removed | 4 | Strings removed |
File removed | 12 | Strings removed |
By default, update_stores will only update files that appear to have changed on disk since the last synchronization with Pootle. To force all files to update, specify --force.
Warning
If files on the file system are corrupt, translations might be deleted from the database. Handle with care!
Changed in version 2.5: The name of the command has been renamed from update_from_templates.
Updates languages to match what is present in the translation templates.
This command is essentially an interface to the Translate Toolkit command pot2po with special Pootle specific routines to update the database and file system to reflect the latest version of translation templates for each language in a project.
During the process, translations existing in the database will first be synced to disk (only in bilingual formats), then they will be updated against the latest templates and after that the database will also be updated to reflect the latest changes.
When updating existing translated files under a given language, the command will retain any existing translations, fuzzy matching is performed on strings with minor changes, and unused translations will be marked as obsolete. New template files will initialize new untranslated files.
It is unlikely you will ever need to run this command for all projects at once. Use the --directory, --project or --language command line options to be specific about the project, language or project/language pair you want to target.
Warning
If the template files are corrupt translations might be lost. If you generate templates based on a script make sure they are in good shape.
This command scans project directories looking for files matching languages not added to the project then adds them. It basically repeats the discovery process done by Pootle when you create a new project.
Using the --cleanup command line option, languages added to projects that no longer have matching files on the filesystem will be deleted.
New in version 2.5.
This command updates the specified files from their Version Control System(s). It supports the --directory, --project, and --language parameters.
Pootle will take care to avoid version control conflicts, and will handle any conflicts on a string level, just like it would if the update was done through the web front-end.
The command first syncs database contents to disk.
New in version 2.5.
This command commits the specified files to their Version Control System(s). It supports the --directory, --project, and --language parameters.
A file needs to be up to date, otherwise the commit will fail. Files can be updated inside Pootle, or using the update_from_vcs command. This is not done automatically, otherwise the merged version of the file will be committed without review without anybody knowing.
New in version 2.5.
This command prints all the language codes on the server. This might be useful for automation.
Accepts the --modified-since parameter to list only those languages modified since the change id given by latest_change_id.
The option --project limits the output to one or more projects. Specify the option multiple times for more than one project.
New in version 2.5.
This command prints all the project codes on the server. This might be useful for automation.
Accepts the --modified-since parameter to list only those projects modified since the change id given by latest_change_id.
New in version 2.5.
This command prints the ID of the latest change (submission) made on the server. This is mostly useful in combination with other commands that operate with these IDs.
New in version 2.6.0.
This command allows to assign permissions for a given user in a project, language or translation project.
This command has two mandatory options: --permissions and --user. It is also mandatory to either provide --language or --project.
It is possible to provide both --language and --project at the same time to indicate that the permissions should be applied only for a given project inside a given language (i.e. for a given translation project).
Option | Accepted value |
---|---|
--user | Valid username |
--language | Valid language code |
--project | Valid project code |
--permissions | Comma separated list of valid permission codenames |
Check the list of available permissions to know which permissions you can use.
Note
All of the options, including --language, can only be provided once, and all of them accept only one value.
The following example assigns the review, view, translate and suggest permissions to the sauron user in the task-123 project for the language de_AT.
$ pootle assign_permissions --user=sauron --language=de_AT --project=task-123 --permissions=review,view,translate,suggest
The following example assigns the translate permission to the sauron user in the task-123 project.
$ pootle assign_permissions --user=sauron --project=task-123 --permissions=translate
These commands allow you to perform tasks with the local Translation Memory from the command line.
New in version 2.6.0.
This command allows to create a local Translation Memory for Pootle usage by using already existing translated units in Pootle database. To run it just type:
$ pootle create_local_tm
Also you can run it providing the --project and --language optional options:
$ pootle create_local_tm --project=firefox --language=af --language=gl
Despite these two options are optional, it is highly recommended to run this command using one --project when dealing with a Pootle instance with projects that together have a lot of units. Also in the specific case where the given project has too many units it is recommended to provide one or several --language options.
This command also has one optional option --drop-local-tm which is used to tell whether the local TM (if it exists) should be dropped before recreating it:
$ pootle create_local_tm --drop-local-tm --project=firefox --language=af --language=gl
These commands allow you to perform tasks with goals from the command line.
Changed in version 2.6.0.
This command allows you to create project goals for a given project reading them from a phaselist file.
Such file comprises two sections.
The first section has several lines where each line consists on three fields separated by a tab. The first field includes a mandatory name for the goal, the second an optional numeric priority for the goal (being 1 the highest priority), and a third optional field with the goal description that can span several lines. The tabs separating the fields must always be present, even if they are not specified.
The second section has several lines where each line consists on two fields separated by a tab. The first field specifies a goal name and the second one is the path of a file:
[goals]
user1 1 Most visible strings for the user.
user2 2
user3 7
other
developer 9 Strings for developer \
tools. As you can see this description spans \
several lines.
install 5 Installation related strings.
[files]
user1 ./browser/branding/official/brand.dtd.pot
other ./browser/chrome/browser/aboutCertError.dtd.pot
user1 browser/chrome/browser/aboutDialog.dtd.pot
user2 browser/chrome/browser/aboutSessionRestore.dtd.pot
developer ./browser/chrome/browser/devtools/appcacheutils.properties.pot
developer browser/chrome/browser/devtools/debugger.dtd.pot
user2 browser/chrome/browser/downloads/downloads.dtd.pot
user3 browser/chrome/browser/engineManager.dtd.pot
install browser/chrome/browser/migration/migration.dtd.pot
install ./browser/chrome/browser/migration/migration.properties.pot
The goals are created if necessary. If the goal exists and has any relationship to any store, that relationships are deleted to make sure that the goals specified on the phaselist file are only applied to the specified stores.
After all goals are created then they are tied to the files on template translation project for the project as they are specified on the phaselist file. If any specified file does not exist for the template translation project on the given project then it is skipped.
This command has two mandatory options: --project and --filename.
$ pootle add_project_goals --project=tutorial --filename=phaselist.txt
These commands expose the database installation and upgrade process from the command line.
New in version 2.5.1.
This command either initializes a new DB or upgrades an existing DB, as required.
Originally, syncdb was a generic Django management command that creates empty database tables. It has been customized for Pootle to create everything required for a bare bones install for releases up to 2.5.0. This includes database tables, default permissions, some default objects used internally by Pootle (like the “default” and “nobody” user profiles) and the special Terminology project and Templates language.
For releases up to 2.5.0, if you just run syncdb you will have a usable Pootle install but you will need to create all languages manually, and you will not have a tutorial project to play with. For releases after 2.5.0, syncdb is not sufficient to create the database schema; it will remain incomplete and unusable until you apply all migrations to the database schema by running the migrate command.
New in version 2.5.1.
Note
Since the addition of the setup management command it is not necessary to directly run this command. Please refer to the Upgrading or Installation instructions to see how to run the setup management command in those scenarios.
This is South’s migrate command, which applies migrations to bring the database up to the latest schema revision. It is required for releases after 2.5.0, even for a fresh install where you are not upgrading from a previous release.
This is Pootle’s install process, it creates the default admin user, populates the language table with several languages with their correct fields, initializes several terminology projects, and creates the tutorial project.
initdb can only be run after syncdb and migrate.
Note
initdb will not import translations into the database, so the first visit to Pootle after initdb will be very slow. It is best to run refresh_stats immediately after initdb.
Changed in version 2.5.1.
This is a command line interface to Pootle’s database schema upgrade process.
This will only perform schema upgrades to version 2.5 from Pootle versions older than 2.5. To upgrade to version 2.5.1 and later South’s migrate command must be used, after upgrading to version 2.5.
For detailed instructions on upgrading, read the Upgrading section of the documentation.
New in version 2.5.1.
Performs post schema upgrade actions that are necessary to leave all the bits in place. It also serves as a trigger for any changes needed by Translate Toolkit version upgrades.
Optionally, the command accepts the --calculate-stats flag, which will calculate full translation statistics after doing the upgrade.
Also, the --flush-checks flag forces flushing the existing quality checks. This is useful when new quality checks have been added or existing ones have been updated, but take into account that this operation is very expensive.
For detailed instructions on upgrading, read the Upgrading section of the documentation.
Running the Django admin collectstatic command finds and extracts static content such as images, CSS and JavaScript files used by the Pootle server, so that they can be served separately from a static webserver. Typically, this is run with the --clear --noinput options, to flush any existing static data and use default answers for the content finders.
Pootle uses the Django app django-assets interface of webassets to minify and bundle CSS and JavaScript; this app has a management command that is used to make these preparations using the command assets build. This command is usually executed after the collectstatic one.
$ pootle changepassword <username>
This can be used to change the password of any user from the command line.
This creates a new admin user. It will prompt for username, password and email address.
This opens a database command prompt with the Pootle database already loaded. It is useful if you know SQL.
Warning
Try not to break anything.
This opens a Python shell with the Django and Pootle environment already loaded. Useful if you know a bit of Python or the Django models syntax.
If you want to schedule certain actions on your Pootle server, using management commands with cron might be a solution.
The management commands can perform certain batch commands which you might want to have executed periodically without user intervention.
For the full details on how to configure cron, read your platform documentation (for example man crontab). Here is an example that runs the refresh_stats command daily at 02:00 AM:
00 02 * * * www-data /var/www/sites/pootle/manage.py refresh_stats
Test your command with the parameters you want from the command line. Insert it in the cron table, and ensure that it is executed as the correct user (the same as your web server) like www-data, for example. The user executing the command is specified in the sixth column. Cron might report errors through local mail, but it might also be useful to look at the logs in /var/log/cron/, for example.
If you are running Pootle from a virtualenv, or if you set any custom PYTHONPATH or similar, you might need to run your management command from a bash script that creates the correct environment for your command to run from. Call this script then from cron. It shouldn’t be necessary to specify the settings file for Pootle — it should automatically be detected.