ngettext(3)                                                        ngettext(3)

NAME

       ngettext,  dngettext,  dcngettext - translate message and choose plural
       form

SYNOPSIS

       #include <libintl.h>

       char * ngettext (const char * msgid, const char * msgid_plural,
                        unsigned long int n);
       char * dngettext (const char * domainname,
                         const char * msgid, const char * msgid_plural,
                         unsigned long int n);
       char * dcngettext (const char * domainname,
                          const char * msgid, const char * msgid_plural,
                          unsigned long int n, int category);

DESCRIPTION

       The ngettext, dngettext and dcngettext functions attempt to translate a
       text  string  into the user's native language, by looking up the appro-
       priate plural form of the translation in a message catalog.

       Plural forms are grammatical variants depending on the a  number.  Some
       languages  have  two forms, called singular and plural. Other languages
       have three forms, called singular, dual and plural. There are also lan-
       guages with four forms.

       The ngettext, dngettext and dcngettext functions work like the gettext,
       dgettext and dcgettext  functions,  respectively.   Additionally,  they
       choose  the  appropriate plural form, which depends on the number n and
       the language of the message catalog where the translation was found.

       In the "C" locale, or if none of the used catalogs contain  a  transla-
       tion for msgid, the ngettext, dngettext and dcngettext functions return
       msgid if n == 1, or msgid_plural if n != 1.

RETURN VALUE

       If a translation was found in one of the specified catalogs, the appro-
       priate  plural  form is converted to the locale's codeset and returned.
       The resulting string is statically allocated and must not  be  modified
       or  freed.  Otherwise  msgid  or msgid_plural is returned, as described
       above.

ERRORS

       errno is not modified.

BUGS

       The return type ought to be const char *, but is char * to avoid  warn-
       ings in C code predating ANSI C.

SEE ALSO

       gettext(3), dgettext(3), dcgettext(3)



GNU gettext 0.18.2                 May 2001                        ngettext(3)