NAME

gettext - message handling functions

SYNOPSIS

use gettext;
use POSIX;     # Needed for setlocale()

setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "");
textdomain("my_program");

print gettext("Welcome to my program"), "\n";
        # (printed in the local language)

DESCRIPTION

The gettext module permits access from perl to the gettext() family of functions for retrieving message strings from databases constructed to internationalize software.

gettext(), dgettext(), and dcgettext() attempt to retrieve a string matching their msgid parameter within the context of the current locale. dcgettext() takes the message's category and the text domain as parameters while dcgettext() defaults to the LC_MESSAGES category and gettext() defaults to LC_MESSAGES and uses the current text domain. If the string is not found in the database, then msgid is returned.

textdomain() sets the current text domain and returns the previously active domain.

bindtextdomain(domain, dirname) instructs the retrieval functions to look for the databases belonging to domain domain in the directory dirname

SEE ALSO

gettext(3i), gettext(1), msgfmt(1)

AUTHOR

Phillip Vandry <vandry@Mlink.NET>