# Override GLPI locales

GLPI uses the [gettext](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/) tool to manage its translations. You can override the default. This is the preferred method rather than editing the original po files and risk losing your changes when updating GLPI.

To do so, you need to create a file named `filename.po` in the `files/_locales/core/` directory. You can also create overrides for plugins with the same method in `files/_locales/pluginkey/` directory where `pluginkey` matches the plugin folder name.

{% hint style="info" %}
Depending on your GLPI configuration, the `_locales` directory can be located elsewhere (if you provided a `local_define.php` file with a `GLPI_LOCAL_I18N_DIR` constant). It's possible to have multiple files, to manage several languages for example.
{% endhint %}

The file must be a valid `gettext` file. You can use [Poedit](https://poedit.net/) to create it.

```po
# Override PO file
#
msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: \n"
"POT-Creation-Date: 2019-04-13 10:43+0200\n"
"PO-Revision-Date: 2019-04-13 10:43+0200\n"
"Last-Translator: Automatically generated\n"
"Language-Team: none\n"
"Language: en_GB\n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1);\n"

msgid "Login"
msgstr "Login from local gettext"
```

`msgid` is the source string, `msgstr` is the translation. You can find the correct source sentences to use in the `locales/glpi.pot` file.

Next you need to compile your .po file into a .mo file readable by GLPI. To do so, you can use the following command:

```
$ cd files/_locales/core/
$ msgfmt -o filename.mo filename.po
```

Finally, GLPI uses a cache system to avoid loading MO files at each request. You need to clear the cache to see your changes. To do so, in Debug mode, go to "Setup > General", "Performance" tab and click on "Reset" button on the "Translation cache" section. If you have command-line access, you may also clear this cache using the `glpi:cache:clear` CLI command. If you clear the cache with the CLI command, make sure you run the command as the web server user.