I18N for HTML::Mason

in the folder where I keep the virtual host data:

locale/ro/LC_MESSAGES/ is where the messages.mo file goes

drwxrwxr-x 1 emilper www-data 4096 2010-01-22 04:53 apache_conf
drwxrwxr-x 1 emilper www-data 4096 2010-01-22 05:48 htdocs
drwxrwxr-x 1 emilper www-data 4096 2008-07-16 18:37 lib
drwxr-xr-x 1 emilper emilper  4096 2010-01-22 02:33 locale
drwxrwxr-x 1 emilper www-data 4096 2008-07-19 02:13 log
drwxrwxr-x 1 emilper www-data 4096 2010-01-22 04:54 mason

in my Apache VirtualHost config:

PerlSetVar  GettextLocalesDir /home/www/mysite/locale/
PerlSetVar  GettextDomain messages

in my Mason request class (MasonRequestClass set in apache conf) :

$self->{'i18n'} = Locale::gettext->domain($self->apache_req->dir_config('GettextDomain'));
$self->{'i18n'}->dir($self->apache_req->dir_config('GettextLocalesDir'));

and

sub _t {
  my ($self, $string) =  @_;
  return $self->{'i18n'}->get($string);
}

in my code:

$page_title = $m->_t("String to translate");

As of now, I have difficulties persuading xgettext to extract the strings from autohandlers, .mas files, and .html files. Until I write my own extractor, I add the strings by hand to a "messages.po" file, which I compile to a "messages.mo" file that can be used by gettext with:

msgfmt messages.po