redhat man page for bindtextdomain

BINDTEXTDOMAIN(3)					     Library Functions Manual						 BINDTEXTDOMAIN(3)

NAME
       bindtextdomain - set directory containing message catalogs

SYNOPSIS
       #include <libintl.h>

       char * bindtextdomain (const char * domainname, const char * dirname);

DESCRIPTION
       The bindtextdomain function sets the base directory of the hierarchy containing message catalogs for a given message domain.

       A  message domain is a set of translatable msgid messages. Usually, every software package has its own message domain. The need for calling
       bindtextdomain arises because packages are not always installed with the same  prefix  as  the  <libintl.h>  header  and  the  libc/libintl
       libraries.

       Message	catalogs  will be expected at the pathnames dirname/locale/category/domainname.mo, where locale is a locale name and category is a
       locale facet such as LC_MESSAGES.

       domainname must be a non-empty string.

       If dirname is not NULL, the base directory for message catalogs belonging to domain domainname is set to dirname. The function makes copies
       of  the argument strings as needed. If the program wishes to call the chdir function, it is important that dirname be an absolute pathname;
       otherwise it cannot be guaranteed that the message catalogs will be found.

       If dirname is NULL, the function returns the previously set base directory for domain domainname.

RETURN VALUE
       If successful, the bindtextdomain function returns the current base directory for  domain  domainname,  after  possibly	changing  it.  The
       resulting string is valid until the next bindtextdomain call for the same domainname and must not be modified or freed. If a memory alloca-
       tion failure occurs, it sets errno to ENOMEM and returns NULL.

ERRORS
       The following error can occur, among others:

       ENOMEM Not enough memory available.

BUGS
       The return type ought to be const char *, but is char * to avoid warnings in C code predating ANSI C.

SEE ALSO
       gettext(3), dgettext(3), dcgettext(3), ngettext(3), dngettext(3), dcngettext(3), textdomain(3), realpath(3)

GNU gettext 0.11.4						     May 2001							 BINDTEXTDOMAIN(3)