100 lines
4.7 KiB
Groff
100 lines
4.7 KiB
Groff
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.\" Copyright (c) Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org>
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.\"
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.\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
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.\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
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.\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
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.\" the License, or (at your option) any later version.
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.\"
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.\" References consulted:
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.\" GNU glibc-2 source code and manual
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.\" GNU gettext source code and manual
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.\" LI18NUX 2000 Globalization Specification
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.\"
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.TH GETTEXT 3 "May 2001" "GNU gettext 0.14.4"
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.SH NAME
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gettext, dgettext, dcgettext \- translate message
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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.nf
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.B #include <libintl.h>
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.sp
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.BI "char * gettext (const char * " msgid );
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.BI "char * dgettext (const char * " domainname ", const char * " msgid );
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.BI "char * dcgettext (const char * " domainname ", const char * " msgid ,
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.BI " int " category );
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.fi
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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The \fBgettext\fP, \fBdgettext\fP and \fBdcgettext\fP functions attempt to
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translate a text string into the user's native language, by looking up the
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translation in a message catalog.
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.PP
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The \fImsgid\fP argument identifies the message to be translated. By
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convention, it is the English version of the message, with non-ASCII
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characters replaced by ASCII approximations. This choice allows the
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translators to work with message catalogs, called PO files, that contain
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both the English and the translated versions of each message, and can be
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installed using the \fBmsgfmt\fP utility.
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.PP
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A message domain is a set of translatable \fImsgid\fP messages. Usually,
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every software package has its own message domain. The domain name is used
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to determine the message catalog where the translation is looked up; it must
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be a non-empty string. For the \fBgettext\fP function, it is specified through
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a preceding \fBtextdomain\fP call. For the \fBdgettext\fP and \fBdcgettext\fP
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functions, it is passed as the \fIdomainname\fP argument; if this argument is
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NULL, the domain name specified through a preceding \fBtextdomain\fP call is
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used instead.
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.PP
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Translation lookup operates in the context of the current locale. For the
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\fBgettext\fP and \fBdgettext\fP functions, the \fBLC_MESSAGES\fP locale
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facet is used. It is determined by a preceding call to the \fBsetlocale\fP
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function. \fBsetlocale(LC_ALL,"")\fP initializes the \fBLC_MESSAGES\fP locale
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based on the first nonempty value of the three environment variables
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\fBLC_ALL\fP, \fBLC_MESSAGES\fP, \fBLANG\fP; see \fBsetlocale\fP(3). For the
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\fBdcgettext\fP function, the locale facet is determined by the \fIcategory\fP
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argument, which should be one of the \fBLC_xxx\fP constants defined in the
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<locale.h> header, excluding \fBLC_ALL\fP. In both cases, the functions also
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use the \fBLC_CTYPE\fP locale facet in order to convert the translated message
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from the translator's codeset to the current locale's codeset, unless
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overridden by a prior call to the \fBbind_textdomain_codeset\fP function.
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.PP
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The message catalog used by the functions is at the pathname
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\fIdirname\fP/\fIlocale\fP/\fIcategory\fP/\fIdomainname\fP.mo. Here
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\fIdirname\fP is the directory specified through \fBbindtextdomain\fP. Its
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default is system and configuration dependent; typically it is
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\fIprefix\fP/share/locale, where \fIprefix\fP is the installation prefix of the
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package. \fIlocale\fP is the name of the current locale facet; the GNU
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implementation also tries generalizations, such as the language name without
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the territory name. \fIcategory\fP is \fBLC_MESSAGES\fP for the \fBgettext\fP
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and \fBdgettext\fP functions, or the argument passed to the \fBdcgettext\fP
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function.
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.PP
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If the \fBLANGUAGE\fP environment variable is set to a nonempty value, and the
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locale is not the "C" locale, the value of \fBLANGUAGE\fP is assumed to contain
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a colon separated list of locale names. The functions will attempt to look up
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a translation of \fImsgid\fP in each of the locales in turn. This is a GNU
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extension.
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.PP
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In the "C" locale, or if none of the used catalogs contain a translation for
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\fImsgid\fP, the \fBgettext\fP, \fBdgettext\fP and \fBdcgettext\fP functions
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return \fImsgid\fP.
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.SH "RETURN VALUE"
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If a translation was found in one of the specified catalogs, it is converted
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to the locale's codeset and returned. The resulting string is statically
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allocated and must not be modified or freed. Otherwise \fImsgid\fP is returned.
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.SH ERRORS
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\fBerrno\fP is not modified.
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.SH BUGS
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The return type ought to be \fBconst char *\fP, but is \fBchar *\fP to avoid
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warnings in C code predating ANSI C.
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.PP
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When an empty string is used for \fImsgid\fP, the functions may return a
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nonempty string.
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.SH "SEE ALSO"
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.BR ngettext (3),
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.BR dngettext (3),
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.BR dcngettext (3),
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.BR setlocale (3),
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.BR textdomain (3),
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.BR bindtextdomain (3),
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.BR bind_textdomain_codeset (3),
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.BR msgfmt (1)
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