how do I generate po file from php array?

Question

I've a php language file, that lists values in an array.

I want to transform this into .po file.

php file looks like this:

<?php 

$LANG_ = array(

// advanced search buttons
"_search1"              => "Start Search",
"_search2"              => "Hide Search Box",
"_search3"              => "Search",

// page numbering
"_pn1"              => "Page %CURRENT_PAGE% of %TOTAL_PAGES%",
"_pn2"              => "<< First",
"_pn3"              => "Last >>",

// _tpl_article-add.php
"_tpl_article-add1"             => "Article Submission Form",
"_tpl_article-add2"             => "Submit Article",
"_tpl_article-add3"             => "Article Submitted Successfully",


// errors
"_err14"            => "Delete",
"_err144"           => "Display Image",
"_err15"            => "Edit",
"_err16"            => "View",

);
?>

This is just an example, file itself is huge, over 3000 lines. It would kill me to insert every single one of these into a po catalog manually. Is there something that can automate this for me?

I'm using poedit.

Thanks, I'm new to this, so any insight will be useful...

Answer 1

The first entry is the file header, look into an existing gettext file (-po) what is needed. The escaping I did with addslashes; maybe you need to do more.

$fh = fopen("en.po", 'w');
fwrite($fh, "#\n");
fwrite($fh, "msgid \"\"\n");
fwrite($fh,  "msgstr \"\"\n");

foreach ($LANG_ as $key => $value) {
    $key = addslashes($key);
    $value = addslashes($value);
    fwrite($fh, "\n");
    fwrite($fh, "msgid \"$key\"\n");
    fwrite($fh, "msgstr \"$value\"\n");
}
fclose($fh);