# gettext

## 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
           translation 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 characters 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 installation 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.
    


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