1GENCAT(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual GENCAT(1P)
2
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.
10
12 gencat — generate a formatted message catalog
13
15 gencat catfile msgfile...
16
18 The gencat utility shall merge the message text source file msgfile
19 into a formatted message catalog catfile. The file catfile shall be
20 created if it does not already exist. If catfile does exist, its mes‐
21 sages shall be included in the new catfile. If set and message numbers
22 collide, the new message text defined in msgfile shall replace the old
23 message text currently contained in catfile.
24
26 None.
27
29 The following operands shall be supported:
30 catfile A pathname of the formatted message catalog. If '-' is speci‐
32 fied, standard output shall be used. The format of the mes‐
33 sage catalog produced is unspecified.
34 msgfile A pathname of a message text source file. If '-' is specified
36 for an instance of msgfile, standard input shall be used. The
37 format of message text source files is defined in the
38 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.
39
41 The standard input shall not be used unless a msgfile operand is speci‐
42 fied as '-'.
43
45 The input files shall be text files.
46
48 The following environment variables shall affect the execution of gen‐
49 cat:
50 LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
52 ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
53 ume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
54 ables for the precedence of internationalization variables
55 used to determine the values of locale categories.)
56 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
58 all the other internationalization variables.
59 LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
61 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
62 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input
63 files).
64 LC_MESSAGES
66 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
67 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
68 error.
69 NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
71 of LC_MESSAGES.
72
74 Default.
75
77 The standard output shall not be used unless the catfile operand is
78 specified as '-'.
79
81 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
82
84 None.
85
87 The content of a message text file shall be in the format defined as
88 follows. Note that the fields of a message text source line are sepa‐
89 rated by a single <blank> character. Any other <blank> characters are
90 considered to be part of the subsequent field.
91 $set n comment
93 This line specifies the set identifier of the following mes‐
94 sages until the next $set or end-of-file appears. The n
95 denotes the set identifier, which is defined as a number in
96 the range [1, {NL_SETMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header defined
97 in the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017). The applica‐
98 tion shall ensure that set identifiers are presented in
99 ascending order within a single source file, but need not be
100 contiguous. Any string following the set identifier shall be
101 treated as a comment. If no $set directive is specified in a
102 message text source file, all messages shall be located in an
103 implementation-defined default message set NL_SETD (see the
104 <nl_types.h> header defined in the Base Definitions volume of
105 POSIX.1‐2017).
106 $delset n comment
108 This line deletes message set n from an existing message cat‐
109 alog. The n denotes the set number [1, {NL_SETMAX}]. Any
110 string following the set number shall be treated as a com‐
111 ment.
112 $ comment A line beginning with '$' followed by a <blank> shall be
114 treated as a comment.
115 m message-text
117 The m denotes the message identifier, which is defined as a
118 number in the range [1, {NL_MSGMAX}] (see the <limits.h>
119 header). The message-text shall be stored in the message cat‐
120 alog with the set identifier specified by the last $set
121 directive, and with message identifier m. If the message-
122 text is empty, and a <blank> field separator is present, an
123 empty string shall be stored in the message catalog. If a
124 message source line has a message number, but neither a field
125 separator nor message-text, the existing message with that
126 number (if any) shall be deleted from the catalog. The appli‐
127 cation shall ensure that message identifiers are in ascending
128 order within a single set, but need not be contiguous. The
129 application shall ensure that the length of message-text is
130 in the range [0, {NL_TEXTMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header).
131 $quote n This line specifies an optional quote character c, which can
133 be used to surround message-text so that trailing <space>
134 characters or null (empty) messages are visible in a message
135 source line. By default, or if an empty $quote directive is
136 supplied, no quoting of message-text shall be recognized.
137 Empty lines in a message text source file shall be ignored. The effects
139 of lines starting with any character other than those defined above are
140 implementation-defined.
141 Text strings can contain the special characters and escape sequences
143 defined in the following table:
144 ┌──────────────────┬────────┬──────────┐
146 │ Description │ Symbol │ Sequence │
147 ├──────────────────┼────────┼──────────┤
148 │<newline> │ NL(LF) │ \n │
149 │Horizontal-tab │ HT │ \t │
150 │<vertical-tab> │ VT │ \v │
151 │<backspace> │ BS │ \b │
152 │<carriage-return> │ CR │ \r │
153 │<form-feed> │ FF │ \f │
154 │Backslash │ \ │ \\ │
155 │Bit pattern │ ddd │ \ddd │
156 └──────────────────┴────────┴──────────┘
157 The escape sequence "\ddd" consists of <backslash> followed by one,
158 two, or three octal digits, which shall be taken to specify the value
159 of the desired character. If the character following a <backslash> is
160 not one of those specified, the <backslash> shall be ignored.
161 A <backslash> followed by a <newline> is also used to continue a string
163 on the following line. Thus, the following two lines describe a single
164 message string:
165 1 This line continues \
168 to the next line
169 which shall be equivalent to:
171 1 This line continues to the next line
174
176 The following exit values shall be returned:
177 0 Successful completion.
179 >0 An error occurred.
181
183 Default.
184 The following sections are informative.
186
188 Message catalogs produced by gencat are binary encoded, meaning that
189 their portability cannot be guaranteed between different types of
190 machine. Thus, just as C programs need to be recompiled for each type
191 of machine, so message catalogs must be recreated via gencat.
192
194 None.
195
197 None.
198
200 None.
201
203 iconv
204 The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment
206 Variables, <limits.h>, <nl_types.h>
207
209 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
210 from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Por‐
211 table Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifi‐
212 cations Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of
213 Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. 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.opengroup.org/unix/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 2017 GENCAT(1P)