Changing the output language of gpg2.exe

Question

I am automating a process and I use GPG2.exe for it. Because I need to parse console output - potentially from different systems I need to set the languge to a controlled value.

I am following the Instructions from the manual which states that

LANGUAGE
Apart from its use by GNU, it is used in the W32 version to override the language selection done through the Registry. If used and set to a valid and available language name (langid), the file with the translation is loaded from gpgdir/gnupg.nls/langid.mo. Here gpgdir is the directory out of which the gpg binary has been loaded. If it can’t be loaded the Registry is tried and as last resort the native Windows locale system is used.

I found a thread from 2011 that goes into a bit more detail regarding this problem, but this may actaully concern a different version.

I created a batch file for manual testing.

@echo off
REM C is meant to display untranslated messages according to one internet source
set LANGUAGE="C"
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG\gpg2.exe" --version
pause

I ecpext the output to be english but it is still german.

The manual states something about there beegin a "gnupg.nls" folder somewhere. I was not able to locate this folder, which makes me wonder where german is loaded from. Is there an error in the man page? The pdf Version of the man page shows the same content as the man page that came with the installation.

Can someone shed some light on this?

Answer 1

I had the same problem that the output was in Swedish though I wanted it in English. The Windows display language was set to English, and I also tried setting environment variables but what solved it for me was to remove the Swedish translation for gnupg file found here:

 C:\Program Files (x86)\gnupg\share\locale

After having removed the "sv" directory all output was in English.

Answer 2

The language directory can be pulled from the registry or I suppose it can also have a fixed path since I can not find the information in my registry.

On my testsysten the path is 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG\share\locale'. This path contains folders for each language - not all of them contain translation files for gpg2 as far as I can tell.

The environment variable for language is not LANGUAGE but LANG. Setting it to C causes gpg2 to default to english.

I successfully tested the following call.

@echo off
set LANG=C
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG\gpg2.exe" --version

User bignose is still correct when he states that I should use the API instead but within my current restrictions I do not see a straight forward way to do so.

Answer 3

This isn't a programming question, as noted in the votes to close.

To answer a different question that could be asked from a programming perspective: Don't parse inherently-changeable console output, when there is a well-defined library API for the same functionality.