xliffxlf

xliffxlf is an open-source software tool designed to work with XLIFF translation files, providing conversion, validation, and basic manipulation to support localization workflows. It is intended for software developers, translators, and localization teams who manage multilingual content and need interoperability between different XLIFF variants.

The project focuses on interoperability between XLIFF 1.2 and XLIFF 2.0, supporting common file extensions such as .xliff and .xlf. Core capabilities include syntax validation against the XLIFF specifications, round-trip parsing to preserve structure, and operations on translation units, metadata, notes, and stage information. It aims to preserve placeholders, segmentation, and formatting during transformations.

Architecture and approach: xliffxlf is designed as a cross-platform tool with both a command-line interface and a library API for integration in localization pipelines. It relies on robust XML processing, schema-aware validation, and modular transformers that implement conversions between variants and extraction or reassembly of translation units. The project emphasizes correctness, performance, and clear error reporting to aid debugging.

Usage and workflows: users typically validate input files, convert between XLIFF flavors, merge or split files for batch processing, and export to alternative formats used by translation memory systems. The tool can be integrated into continuous localization pipelines and build systems.

Development and status: xliffxlf is community-driven, hosted on a public code repository, with contributions from volunteers and organizations involved in localization. It is released under an open-source license and welcomes issue reports, feature requests, and pull requests to improve coverage and compatibility with evolving XLIFF standards.