Tribblix: manual page: gettxt.1

GETTXT(1) User Commands GETTXT(1)

NAME

gettxt - retrieve a text string from a message database

SYNOPSIS

gettxt msgfile : msgnum [dflt_msg]

DESCRIPTION

gettxt retrieves a text string from a message file in the directory
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES . The directory name locale
corresponds to the language in which the text strings are written;
see setlocale(3C).

msgfile
Name of the file in the directory
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES to retrieve msgnum
from. The name of msgfile can be up to 14 characters in
length, but may not contain either \0 (null) or the
ASCII code for / (slash) or : (colon).

msgnum
Sequence number of the string to retrieve from msgfile.
The strings in msgfile are numbered sequentially from 1
to n, where n is the number of strings in the file.

dflt_msg
Default string to be displayed if gettxt fails to
retrieve msgnum from msgfile. Nongraphic characters must
be represented as alphabetic escape sequences.

The text string to be retrieved is in the file msgfile, created by
the mkmsgs(1) utility and installed under the directory
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES . You control which directory is
searched by setting the environment variable LC_MESSAGES. If
LC_MESSAGES is not set, the environment variable LANG will be used.
If LANG is not set, the files containing the strings are under the
directory /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES .

If gettxt fails to retrieve a message in the requested language, it
will try to retrieve the same message from
/usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES/ msgfile. If this also fails, and if
dflt_msg is present and non-null, then it will display the value of
dflt_msg; if dflt_msg is not present or is null, then it will display
the string Message not found!!.

EXAMPLES

Example 1: The environment variables LANG and LC_MESSAGES.

If the environment variables LANG or LC_MESSAGES have not been set to
other than their default values, the following example:

example% gettxt UX:10 "hello world\n"

will try to retrieve the 10th message from
/usr/lib/locale/C/UX/msgfile. If the retrieval fails, the message
"hello world," followed by a newline, will be displayed.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment
variables that affect the execution of gettxt: LC_CTYPE and
LC_MESSAGES.

LC_CTYPE
Determines how gettxt handles characters. When
LC_CTYPE is set to a valid value, gettxt can display
and handle text and filenames containing valid
characters for that locale. gettxt can display and
handle Extended Unix Code (EUC) characters where any
individual character can be 1, 2, or 3 bytes wide.
gettxt can also handle EUC characters of 1, 2, or
more column widths. In the "C" locale, only
characters from ISO 8859-1 are valid.

LC_MESSAGES
Determines how diagnostic and informative messages
are presented. This includes the language and style
of the messages, and the correct form of affirmative
and negative responses. In the "C" locale, the
messages are presented in the default form found in
the program itself (in most cases, U.S. English).

FILES

/usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES/*

default message files created by mkmsgs(1)

/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/*

message files for different languages created by mkmsgs(1)

ATTRIBUTES