bindtextdomain(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

BINDTEXTDOMAIN(3)       Library Functions Manual       BINDTEXTDOMAIN(3)

NAME         top

       bindtextdomain - set directory containing message catalogs

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <libintl.h>

       char * bindtextdomain (const char * domainname, const char * dirname);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The bindtextdomain function sets the base directory of the
       hierarchy containing message catalogs for a given message domain.

       A message domain is a set of translatable msgid messages.
       Usually, every software package has its own message domain. The
       need for calling bindtextdomain arises because packages are not
       always installed with the same prefix as the <libintl.h> header
       and the libc/libintl libraries.

       Message catalogs will be expected at the pathnames
       dirname/locale/category/domainname.mo, where locale is a locale
       name and category is a locale facet such as LC_MESSAGES.

       domainname must be a non-empty string.

       If dirname is not NULL, the base directory for message catalogs
       belonging to domain domainname is set to dirname. The function
       makes copies of the argument strings as needed. If the program
       wishes to call the chdir function, it is important that dirname
       be an absolute pathname; otherwise it cannot be guaranteed that
       the message catalogs will be found.

       If dirname is NULL, the function returns the previously set base
       directory for domain domainname.

RETURN VALUE         top

       If successful, the bindtextdomain function returns the current
       base directory for domain domainname, after possibly changing it.
       The resulting string is valid until the next bindtextdomain call
       for the same domainname and must not be modified or freed. If a
       memory allocation failure occurs, it sets errno to ENOMEM and
       returns NULL.

ERRORS         top

       The following error can occur, among others:

       ENOMEM Not enough memory available.

BUGS         top

       The return type ought to be const char *, but is char * to avoid
       warnings in C code predating ANSI C.

SEE ALSO         top

       gettext(3), dgettext(3), dcgettext(3), ngettext(3), dngettext(3),
       dcngettext(3), textdomain(3), realpath(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the gettext (message translation) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
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GNU gettext 0.22.2              May 2001               BINDTEXTDOMAIN(3)

Pages that refer to this page: gettext(3)textdomain(3)