gettext: gettext
11.2 About ‘gettext’
====================
The definition of the ‘gettext’ interface comes from a Uniforum
proposal. It was submitted there by Sun, who had implemented the
‘gettext’ function in SunOS 4, around 1990. Nowadays, the ‘gettext’
interface is specified by the OpenI18N standard.
The main point about this solution is that it does not follow the
method of normal file handling (open-use-close) and that it does not
burden the programmer with so many tasks, especially the unique key
handling. Of course here also a unique key is needed, but this key is
the message itself (how long or short it is). See ⇒Comparison
for a more detailed comparison of the two methods.
The following section contains a rather detailed description of the
interface. We make it that detailed because this is the interface we
chose for the GNU ‘gettext’ Library. Programmers interested in using
this library will be interested in this description.
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