Для чего используются различные форматы файлов gettext?

I started trying to translate a few of the most used text entries in a C program using gettext, but when digging into this I got a little bit confused about all the different file formats since there seems to be some overlap in functionality?

I would like get an overview of the different formats

• .po
• .pot
• .mo
• .gmo
• (other formats I have excluded?)

and learn

• What is the normal workflow?
• What does this file format contain?
• What tools are typically used?
• What "opposite" direction conversions are possible (1)?

(1) I know that msgunfmt can convert from .mo to .po, but since .mo is the final end format I assume this is not a lossless process. I.e. if I convert from hello1.mo to hello2.po and then convert from hello2.po до hello3.mo, я предполагаю, что hello1.mo и hello3.mo будут содержать идентичные языковые строки, но некоторая метаинформация будут потеряны по пути, верно?