Incorrect export & re-import of plural strings in non-Gettext formats

[anastasiialz]

Describe the issue

When working with strings that contain plural forms, Weblate incorrectly exports them to several non-Gettext formats (such as JSON, XLIFF, TBX, etc.).

While Gettext (.po) exports are generated correctly, the exported non-Gettext files contain invalid or incomplete plural data.

Additionally, when these exported files are imported back into Weblate, the translations become corrupted.

I already tried

• I've read and searched the documentation.
• I've searched for similar filed issues in this repository.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Export plural strings to a non-Gettext format (e.g. JSON, XLIFF, TBX, JSON).
2. Import the exported file back into Weblate.
3. Check the affected strings and their plural forms.

Expected behavior

Plural strings should be exported correctly to all supported formats, following the format specification.

Screenshots

source

exported data (xliff)

re-import result (xliff)

exported data (json)

re-import result (json)

Exception traceback

How do you run Weblate?

Docker container

Weblate versions

Weblate 5.14.3

Weblate deploy checks

Additional context

No response

[nijel]

These formats do not support plurals, so this is expected behavior. "XLIFF 1.1 with gettext extensions" should work fine for this.

[anastasiialz]

Thanks for the clarification!

I see that these formats do not support plurals. However, this leads to two practical issues:

1. When plural strings are exported to formats that do not support them (e.g. JSON), importing these files back into Weblate can break translations (plural forms are lost or partially removed). It might be safer to either skip exporting plural strings to such formats or show a clear warning that plural data will not survive re-import.
2. I tested “XLIFF 1.1 with gettext extensions”:

• plural forms are correctly exported (see screenshot 1),
• but on re-import these plural strings are not processed / not applied (see screenshot 2).
  So export works, but the export → import round-trip for plurals still seems incomplete.