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11.2 About gettext
The definition of the gettext interface comes from a Uniforum
proposal. It was submitted there by Sun, who had implemented the
gettext function in SunOS 4, around 1990. Nowadays, the
gettext interface is specified by the OpenI18N standard.
The main point about this solution is that it does not follow the method of normal file handling (open-use-close) and that it does not burden the programmer with so many tasks, especially the unique key handling. Of course here also a unique key is needed, but this key is the message itself (how long or short it is). See Comparing the Two Interfaces for a more detailed comparison of the two methods.
The following section contains a rather detailed description of the
interface. We make it that detailed because this is the interface
we chose for the GNU gettext Library. Programmers interested
in using this library will be interested in this description.
| 11.2.1 The Interface | The interface | |
| 11.2.2 Solving Ambiguities | Solving ambiguities | |
| 11.2.3 Locating Message Catalog Files | Locating message catalog files | |
11.2.4 How to specify the output character set gettext uses | How to request conversion to Unicode | |
| 11.2.5 Using contexts for solving ambiguities | Solving ambiguities in GUI programs | |
| 11.2.6 Additional functions for plural forms | Additional functions for handling plurals | |
| 11.2.7 Optimization of the *gettext functions |
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