1GENCAT(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual GENCAT(1P)
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6 This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
7 implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
8 Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9 not be implemented on Linux.
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13 gencat — generate a formatted message catalog
14
16 gencat catfile msgfile...
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19 The gencat utility shall merge the message text source file msgfile
20 into a formatted message catalog catfile. The file catfile shall be
21 created if it does not already exist. If catfile does exist, its mes‐
22 sages shall be included in the new catfile. If set and message numbers
23 collide, the new message text defined in msgfile shall replace the old
24 message text currently contained in catfile.
25
27 None.
28
30 The following operands shall be supported:
31 catfile A pathname of the formatted message catalog. If '−' is speci‐
33 fied, standard output shall be used. The format of the mes‐
34 sage catalog produced is unspecified.
35 msgfile A pathname of a message text source file. If '−' is specified
37 for an instance of msgfile, standard input shall be used. The
38 format of message text source files is defined in the
39 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.
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42 The standard input shall not be used unless a msgfile operand is speci‐
43 fied as '−'.
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46 The input files shall be text files.
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49 The following environment variables shall affect the execution of gen‐
50 cat:
51 LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
53 ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
54 ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
55 ables for the precedence of internationalization variables
56 used to determine the values of locale categories.)
57 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
59 all the other internationalization variables.
60 LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
62 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
63 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input
64 files).
65 LC_MESSAGES
67 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
68 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
69 error.
70 NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
72 of LC_MESSAGES.
73
75 Default.
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78 The standard output shall not be used unless the catfile operand is
79 specified as '−'.
80
82 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
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85 None.
86
88 The content of a message text file shall be in the format defined as
89 follows. Note that the fields of a message text source line are sepa‐
90 rated by a single <blank> character. Any other <blank> characters are
91 considered to be part of the subsequent field.
92 $set n comment
94 This line specifies the set identifier of the following mes‐
95 sages until the next $set or end-of-file appears. The n
96 denotes the set identifier, which is defined as a number in
97 the range [1, {NL_SETMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header defined
98 in the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008). The applica‐
99 tion shall ensure that set identifiers are presented in
100 ascending order within a single source file, but need not be
101 contiguous. Any string following the set identifier shall be
102 treated as a comment. If no $set directive is specified in a
103 message text source file, all messages shall be located in an
104 implementation-defined default message set NL_SETD (see the
105 <nl_types.h> header defined in the Base Definitions volume of
106 POSIX.1‐2008).
107 $delset n comment
109 This line deletes message set n from an existing message cat‐
110 alog. The n denotes the set number [1, {NL_SETMAX}]. Any
111 string following the set number shall be treated as a com‐
112 ment.
113 $ comment A line beginning with '$' followed by a <blank> shall be
115 treated as a comment.
116 m message-text
118 The m denotes the message identifier, which is defined as a
119 number in the range [1, {NL_MSGMAX}] (see the <limits.h>
120 header). The message-text shall be stored in the message cat‐
121 alog with the set identifier specified by the last $set
122 directive, and with message identifier m. If the message-
123 text is empty, and a <blank> field separator is present, an
124 empty string shall be stored in the message catalog. If a
125 message source line has a message number, but neither a field
126 separator nor message-text, the existing message with that
127 number (if any) shall be deleted from the catalog. The appli‐
128 cation shall ensure that message identifiers are in ascending
129 order within a single set, but need not be contiguous. The
130 application shall ensure that the length of message-text is
131 in the range [0, {NL_TEXTMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header).
132 $quote n This line specifies an optional quote character c, which can
134 be used to surround message-text so that trailing <space>
135 characters or null (empty) messages are visible in a message
136 source line. By default, or if an empty $quote directive is
137 supplied, no quoting of message-text shall be recognized.
138 Empty lines in a message text source file shall be ignored. The effects
140 of lines starting with any character other than those defined above are
141 implementation-defined.
142 Text strings can contain the special characters and escape sequences
144 defined in the following table:
145 ┌──────────────────┬────────┬──────────┐
147 │ Description │ Symbol │ Sequence │
148 ├──────────────────┼────────┼──────────┤
149 │<newline> │ NL(LF) │ \n │
150 │Horizontal-tab │ HT │ \t │
151 │<vertical-tab> │ VT │ \v │
152 │<backspace> │ BS │ \b │
153 │<carriage-return> │ CR │ \r │
154 │<form-feed> │ FF │ \f │
155 │Backslash │ \ │ \\ │
156 │Bit pattern │ ddd │ \ddd │
157 └──────────────────┴────────┴──────────┘
158 The escape sequence "\ddd" consists of <backslash> followed by one,
159 two, or three octal digits, which shall be taken to specify the value
160 of the desired character. If the character following a <backslash> is
161 not one of those specified, the <backslash> shall be ignored.
162 A <backslash> followed by a <newline> is also used to continue a string
164 on the following line. Thus, the following two lines describe a single
165 message string:
166 1 This line continues \
168 to the next line
169 which shall be equivalent to:
171 1 This line continues to the next line
173
175 The following exit values shall be returned:
176 0 Successful completion.
178 >0 An error occurred.
180
182 Default.
183 The following sections are informative.
185
187 Message catalogs produced by gencat are binary encoded, meaning that
188 their portability cannot be guaranteed between different types of
189 machine. Thus, just as C programs need to be recompiled for each type
190 of machine, so message catalogs must be recreated via gencat.
191
193 None.
194
196 None.
197
199 None.
200
202 iconv
203 The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
205 Variables, <limits.h>, <nl_types.h>
206
208 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
209 from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
210 -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
211 Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
212 cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
213 POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
214 event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
215 The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
216 is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
217 at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
218 Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
220 most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
221 files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
222 nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
223IEEE/The Open Group 2013 GENCAT(1P)