gettxt(1)							   User Commands							 gettxt(1)

NAME

       gettxt - retrieve a text string from a message database

SYNOPSIS

       gettxt msgfile : msgnum [dflt_msg]

DESCRIPTION

       gettxt  retrieves  a text string from a message file in the directory /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES . The directory name locale corre-
       sponds to the language in which the text strings are written; see setlocale(3C).

       msgfile	    Name of the file in the directory /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES  to retrieve msgnum from. The name of msgfile can  be	up
		    to 14 characters in length, but may not contain either  (null) or the ASCII code for / (slash) or : (colon).

       msgnum	    Sequence  number of the string to retrieve from msgfile. The strings in msgfile are numbered sequentially from 1 to n, where n
		    is the number of strings in the file.

       dflt_msg     Default string to be displayed if gettxt fails to retrieve msgnum from msgfile. Nongraphic characters must be  represented	as
		    alphabetic escape sequences.

       The  text  string  to  be  retrieved  is  in  the  file	msgfile,  created  by  the  mkmsgs(1)  utility	and  installed under the directory
       /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES   . You control which directory is searched by setting the environment variable LC_MESSAGES. If  LC_MES-
       SAGES  is not set, the environment variable LANG will be used. If LANG is not set, the files containing the strings are under the directory
       /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES .

       If gettxt fails to retrieve a message in the requested language, it will try to retrieve the same  message  from  /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MES-
       SAGES/ msgfile. If this also fails, and if dflt_msg is present and non-null, then it will display the value of dflt_msg; if dflt_msg is not
       present or is null, then it will display the string Message not found!!.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1 The environment variables LANG and LC_MESSAGES.

       If the environment variables LANG or LC_MESSAGES have not been set to other than their default values, the following example:

	 example% gettxt UX:10 "hello world
"

       will try to retrieve the 10th message from /usr/lib/locale/C/UX/msgfile. If the retrieval fails, the message "hello world," followed  by  a
       newline, will be displayed.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of gettxt: LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES.

       LC_CTYPE        Determines  how	gettxt	handles  characters. When LC_CTYPE is set to a valid value, gettxt can display and handle text and
		       filenames containing valid characters for that locale. gettxt can display and handle Extended Unix  Code  (EUC)	characters
		       where  any individual character can be 1, 2, or 3 bytes wide. gettxt can also handle EUC characters of 1, 2, or more column
		       widths. In the "C" locale, only characters from ISO 8859-1 are valid.

       LC_MESSAGES     Determines how diagnostic and informative messages are presented. This includes the language and style of the messages, and
		       the  correct form of affirmative and negative responses.  In the "C" locale, the messages are presented in the default form
		       found in the program itself (in most cases, U.S. English).

FILES

       /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES/*

	   default message files created by mkmsgs(1)

       /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/*

	   message files for different languages created by mkmsgs(1)

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWloc			   |
       |CSI			     |Enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       exstr(1), mkmsgs(1), srchtxt(1), gettxt(3C), setlocale(3C), attributes(5), environ(5)

SunOS 5.11							    20 Dec 1996 							 gettxt(1)