CODEWITHSUNDEEP
clocalizationposix
Bass
Bass

Reputation: 5338

Default extension for message catalog files

I want to localize my application using the catopen()/catgets() family of functions.

As far as I understand, in the absence of NLSPATH variable, message catalogs will be looked up under /usr/share/locale/xx_YY/LC_MESSAGES.

What is the "traditional" file extension for message catalog files? I see some code examples using *.cat while others don't use any extension at all. Is it dependent on a particular UNIX flavour?

On my Linux boxes I see plenty of *.mo files, but those are GNU gettext archives. It seems catgets() can rarely be seen "in the wild" nowadays.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 78

Answers (1)

erik258
erik258

Reputation: 16304

I meant this to be a comment, but it's a bit too long :P

Looking at the doc you've linked to, it seems probably that the code isn't opinionated as to file extension. Since you're not using MIME or anything to automatically find a handler for this file, the only requirement is likely to be that the name is correct. In UNIX, especially in the shell, file extensions often mean nothing to the system - fo example, any file extension can be used on an executable script as long as the executable bit is set and the shebang line at the top of the file specifies an appropriate interpreter.

It's possible the user community, if one still exists for this crufty sounding library, has a standard naming convention that the docs don't describe - but I wouldn't sweat it too much. It's trival to change file names, even if it means a recompile ( command line variables would make the program agnostic as to file name and extension )

Upvotes: 1

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