gettext(1) [opensolaris man page]
gettext(1) User Commands gettext(1) NAME
gettext - retrieve text string from message database SYNOPSIS
gettext [-d textdomain | --domain=textdomain] [textdomain] msgid gettext -s [-e] [-n] [-d textdomain | --domain=textdomain] msgid... DESCRIPTION
The gettext utility retrieves a translated text string corresponding to string msgid from a message object generated with msgfmt(1). The message object name is derived from the optional argument textdomain if present, otherwise from the TEXTDOMAIN environment. If no domain is specified, or if a corresponding string cannot be found, gettext prints msgid. Ordinarily, gettext looks for its message object in /usr/lib/locale/lang/LC_MESSAGES where lang is the locale name. If present, the TEXTDO- MAINDIR environment variable replaces the pathname component up to lang. This command interprets C escape sequences such as for tab. Use \ to print a backslash. To produce a message on a line of its own, either enter at the end of msgid, or use this command in conjunction with printf(1). When used with the -s option, gettext behaves like echo(1). But it does not simply copy its arguments to standard output. Instead, those messages found in the selected catalog are translated. OPTIONS
The following options are supported: -d textdomain Retrieves translated messages from the domain textdomain, if textdomain is not specified as an operand. --domain=textdomain -e Enables expansion of some escape sequences if used with the -s option. -n Suppresses trailing newline if used with the -s option. -s Behaves like echo(1) (see DESCRIPTION above). If the -s option is specified, no expansion of C escape sequences is performed and a newline character is appended to the output, by default. OPERANDS
The following operands are supported: textdomain A domain name used to retrieve the messages. This overrides the specification by the -d or --domain options, if present. msgid A key to retrieve the localized message. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
LANG Specifies locale name. LC_MESSAGES Specifies messaging locale, and if present overrides LANG for messages. TEXTDOMAIN Specifies the text domain name, which is identical to the message object filename without .mo suffix. TEXTDOMAINDIR Specifies the pathname to the message database. If present, replaces /usr/lib/locale. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
echo(1), msgfmt(1), printf(1), gettext(3C), setlocale(3C), attributes(5) NOTES
This is the shell equivalent of the library routine gettext(3C). SunOS 5.11 17 Sep 2001 gettext(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
GETTEXT(3) Library Functions Manual GETTEXT(3) NAME
gettext, dgettext, dcgettext - translate message SYNOPSIS
#include <libintl.h> char * gettext (const char * msgid); char * dgettext (const char * domainname, const char * msgid); char * dcgettext (const char * domainname, const char * msgid, int category); DESCRIPTION
The gettext, dgettext and dcgettext functions attempt to translate a text string into the user's native language, by looking up the trans- lation in a message catalog. The msgid argument identifies the message to be translated. By convention, it is the English version of the message, with non-ASCII charac- ters replaced by ASCII approximations. This choice allows the translators to work with message catalogs, called PO files, that contain both the English and the translated versions of each message, and can be installed using the msgfmt utility. A message domain is a set of translatable msgid messages. Usually, every software package has its own message domain. The domain name is used to determine the message catalog where the translation is looked up; it must be a non-empty string. For the gettext function, it is specified through a preceding textdomain call. For the dgettext and dcgettext functions, it is passed as the domainname argument; if this argument is NULL, the domain name specified through a preceding textdomain call is used instead. Translation lookup operates in the context of the current locale. For the gettext and dgettext functions, the LC_MESSAGES locale facet is used. It is determined by a preceding call to the setlocale function. setlocale(LC_ALL,"") initializes the LC_MESSAGES locale based on the first nonempty value of the three environment variables LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG; see setlocale(3). For the dcgettext function, the locale facet is determined by the category argument, which should be one of the LC_xxx constants defined in the <locale.h> header, excluding LC_ALL. In both cases, the functions also use the LC_CTYPE locale facet in order to convert the translated message from the translator's codeset to the current locale's codeset, unless overridden by a prior call to the bind_textdomain_codeset function. The message catalog used by the functions is at the pathname dirname/locale/category/domainname.mo. Here dirname is the directory specified through bindtextdomain. Its default is system and configuration dependent; typically it is prefix/share/locale, where prefix is the instal- lation prefix of the package. locale is the name of the current locale facet; the GNU implementation also tries generalizations, such as the language name without the territory name. category is LC_MESSAGES for the gettext and dgettext functions, or the argument passed to the dcgettext function. If the LANGUAGE environment variable is set to a nonempty value, and the locale is not the "C" locale, the value of LANGUAGE is assumed to contain a colon separated list of locale names. The functions will attempt to look up a translation of msgid in each of the locales in turn. This is a GNU extension. In the "C" locale, or if none of the used catalogs contain a translation for msgid, the gettext, dgettext and dcgettext functions return msgid. RETURN VALUE
If a translation was found in one of the specified catalogs, it is converted to the locale's codeset and returned. The resulting string is statically allocated and must not be modified or freed. Otherwise msgid is returned. ERRORS
errno is not modified. BUGS
The return type ought to be const char *, but is char * to avoid warnings in C code predating ANSI C. When an empty string is used for msgid, the functions may return a nonempty string. SEE ALSO
ngettext(3), dngettext(3), dcngettext(3), setlocale(3), textdomain(3), bindtextdomain(3), bind_textdomain_codeset(3), msgfmt(1) GNU gettext 0.18.1 May 2001 GETTEXT(3)