strmerge(1)						      General Commands Manual						       strmerge(1)

NAME

       strmerge - batch string replacement

SYNOPSIS

       strmerge [-m prefix] [-p patternfile] [-s string] source-program...

OPTIONS

       Add  prefix  to	message  numbers  in the output source program and source message catalog. You can use this prefix as a mnemonic. You must
       process source message catalogs that contain number prefixes using the mkcatdefs command.  Message numbers will be in the form:

	      <prefix><msg_num>

	      Set numbers will be in the form:

	      S_<prefix><set_num>

	      If you process your input source program with the mkcatdefs command, the resulting source program and source message  catalog  might
	      not  be  portable. For more information, see the Writing Software for the International Market.  Use patternfile to match strings in
	      the input source program. By default, the command searches for the pattern file in the current directory, your  home  directory  and
	      finally /usr/lib/nls.

	      If  you omit the -p option, the strmerge command uses a default patterns file that is stored in /usr/lib/nls/patterns.  Write string
	      at the top of the source message catalog. If you omit the -s option, strmerge uses the string specified in the $CATHEAD  section	of
	      the patterns file.

DESCRIPTION

       The  strmerge  command  reads the strings specified in the message file produced by strextract and replaces those strings with calls to the
       message file in the source program to create a new source program. The new version of source program has the same name as the input  source
       program,  with  the prefix nl_. For example, if the input source program is named prog.c, the output source program is named nl_prog.c. You
       use this command to replace hard-coded messages (text strings identified by the strextract command) with calls to the catgets function  and
       to  create  a  source  message catalog file. The source message catalog contains the text for each message extracted from your input source
       program. The strmerge command names the file by appending to the name of the input source program. For example, the source message  catalog
       for the prog.c program is named prog.msg. You can use the source message catalog as input to the gencat command.

       At  run	time, the program reads the message text from the message catalog.  By storing messages in a message catalog, instead of your pro-
       gram, you allow the text of messages to be translated to a new language or modified without the source program being changed.

       In the source-program argument, you name one or more source programs for which you want strings replaced. The  strmerge	command  does  not
       replace	messages  for source programs included using the #include directive. Therefore, you might want a source program and all the source
       programs it includes on a single strmerge command line.

       You can create a patterns file (as specified by patternfile ) to control how the strmerge command  replaces  text.  The	patterns  file	is
       divided	into  several  sections,  each of which is identified by a keyword. The keyword must start at the beginning of a new line, and its
       first character must be a dollar sign ($). Following the identifier, you specify a number of patterns. Each pattern begins on  a  new  line
       and  follows the regular expression syntax you use in the ed editor.  For more information on the patterns file, see the patterns(4) refer-
       ence page.

RESTRICTIONS

       You can specify only one rewrite string for all classes of pattern matches.

       The strmerge command does not verify if the message text file matches the source file being rewritten.

       The strmerge command does not replace strings to files included with #include directive. You must run the strmerge command on  these  files
       separately.

EXAMPLES

       The following produces a message file prog.cat for a program called prog.c.

       %  strextract  -p c_patterns prog.c prog2.c % vi prog.str % strmerge -p c_patterns prog.c prog2.c % gencat prog.cat prog.msg prog2.msg % vi
       nl_prog.c % vi nl_prog2.c % cc nl_prog.c nl_prog2.c

       In this example, the strextract command uses the c_patterns file to determine which strings to match. The input source programs	are  named
       prog.c and prog2.c.

       If you need to remove any of the messages or extract one of the created strings, edit the resulting message file, prog.str. Under no condi-
       tions should you add to this file. Doing so could result in unpredictable behavior.

       You issue the strmerge command to replace the extracted strings with calls to the message catalog. In response to  this	command,  strmerge
       creates the source message catalogs, prog.msg and prog2.msg, and the output source programs, nl_prog.c and nl_prog2.c.

       Before  compiling  the  source  programs,  you  must edit nl_prog.c and nl_prog2.c to include the appropriate catopen and catclose function
       calls.

       The gencat command creates a message catalog and the cc command creates an executable program.

SEE ALSO

       extract(1), gencat(1), strextract(1), trans(1), regexp(3), catopen(3), catgets(3), patterns(4)

       Writing Software for the International Market

																       strmerge(1)