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gettext(3) — Linux manual page

GETTEXT(3)               Library Functions ManualGETTEXT(3)

NAME        top

       gettext, dgettext, dcgettext - translate message

SYNOPSIS        top

#include <libintl.h>char * gettext (const char *msgid);char * dgettext (const char *domainname, const char *msgid);char * dcgettext (const char *domainname, const char *msgid,intcategory);

DESCRIPTION        top

       Thegettext,dgettextanddcgettextfunctions attempt to translate       a text string into the user's native language, by looking up the       translation in a message catalog.       Themsgid 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 themsgfmtutility.       A message domain is a set of translatablemsgid 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 thegettext       function, it is specified through a precedingtextdomaincall. For       thedgettextanddcgettextfunctions, it is passed as thedomainname argument; if this argument is NULL, the domain name       specified through a precedingtextdomaincall is used instead.       Translation lookup operates in the context of the current locale.       For thegettextanddgettextfunctions, theLC_MESSAGESlocale       facet is used. It is determined by a preceding call to thesetlocalefunction.setlocale (LC_ALL, "")initializes theLC_MESSAGESlocale based on the first nonempty value of the three       environment variablesLC_ALL,LC_MESSAGES,LANG; seesetlocale(3).       For thedcgettextfunction, the locale facet is determined by thecategory argument, which should be one of theLC_xxxconstants       defined in the <locale.h> header, excludingLC_ALL. In both cases,       the functions also use theLC_CTYPElocale 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       thebind_textdomain_codesetfunction.       The message catalog used by the functions is at the pathnamedirname/locale/category/domainname.mo. Heredirname is the       directory specified throughbindtextdomain. Its default is system       and configuration dependent; typically it isprefix/share/locale,       whereprefix 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 isLC_MESSAGESfor thegettextanddgettextfunctions, or the argument passed to thedcgettext       function.       If theLANGUAGEenvironment variable is set to a nonempty value,       and the locale is not the "C" locale, the value ofLANGUAGEis       assumed to contain a colon separated list of locale names. The       functions will attempt to look up a translation ofmsgid 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 formsgid, thegettext,dgettextanddcgettext       functions returnmsgid.

RETURN VALUE        top

       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.       Otherwisemsgid is returned.

ERRORS        top

errnois not modified.

BUGS        top

       The return type ought to beconst char *, but ischar *to avoid       warnings in C code predating ANSI C.       When an empty string is used formsgid, the functions may return a       nonempty string.

SEE ALSO        top

ngettext(3),dngettext(3),dcngettext(3),setlocale(3),textdomain(3),bindtextdomain(3),bind_textdomain_codeset(3),msgfmt(1)

COLOPHON        top

       This page is part of thegettext (message translation) project.       Information about the project can be found at        ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/⟩.  If you have a bug report       for this manual page, see       ⟨http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gettext/⟩.  This page was       obtained from the tarball gettext-0.26.tar.gz fetched from       ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/⟩ on 2025-08-11.  If you discover       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this       COLOPHON (which isnot part of the original manual page), send a       mail to man-pages@man7.orgGNU gettext 0.26              November 2024GETTEXT(3)

Pages that refer to this page:bindtextdomain(3), bind_textdomain_codeset(3), ngettext(3), textdomain(3), wprintf(3), environ(7), locale(7)

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