The MO file format specification[0] reads:
"A program seeing an unexpected major revision number should stop reading the MO file entirely"
But Python doesn't pay attention to versions at all.

As a test-case I attached a MO file with a bogus major revision number. msgunfmt correcly rejects such a file:

$ msgunfmt messages.mo 
msgunfmt: file "messages.mo" is not in GNU .mo format

Yet Python opens it happily:

>>> import gettext
>>> t = gettext.GNUTranslations(open("messages.mo", "rb"))
>>> t.gettext("foo")
'bar'


[0] http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/MO-Files.html

@Jakub does this apply to all Python versions and OSes?

I believe so, yes.

The patch hardcodes 5 as version number in the exception message.

The specifiction also says that "an unexpected minor revision number means that the file can be read but will not reveal its full contents, when parsed by a program that supports only smaller minor revision numbers". So I think a reasonable thing to do is to accept MO files with an expected major revision but an unexpected minor revision.

That sounds good. Should a warning be thrown for an unexpected minor revision?

Does anyone have any thoughts about throwing a warning for an unexpected minor revision?

The linked docs say: """an unexpected minor revision number means that the file can be read but will not reveal its full contents, when parsed by a program that supports only smaller minor revision numbers""".

Unless there an important piece of contents that can be missed, I would say a warning is more of a distraction here.

Okay, then. I'll just leave it out.

I've added a second patch, which properly distinguishes between major and minor revisions, and updates the docs to account for the new behavior.

Is there anything that needs to be changed?

Aaron, the patch looks fine, I'm going to commit it.

New changeset 3b26a0983a3c by Antoine Pitrou in branch 'default':
Issue #18216: gettext now raises an error when a .mo file has an unsupported major version number.  Patch by Aaron Hill.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/3b26a0983a3c

I've pushed it to 3.5 only. I don't think it's worth risking compatibility breakage in bugfix branches. Thank you for your contribution!

Awesome! Thanks!