1This is the GNU gettext package. It is interesting for authors or 2maintainers of other packages or programs which they want to see 3internationalized. As one step the handling of messages in different 4languages should be implemented. For this task GNU gettext provides 5the needed tools and library functions. 6 7Users of GNU packages should also install GNU gettext because some 8other GNU packages will use the gettext program included in this 9package to internationalize the messages given by shell scripts. 10 11Another good reason to install GNU gettext is to make sure the 12here included functions compile ok. This helps to prevent errors 13when installing other packages which use this library. The message 14handling functions are not yet part of POSIX and ISO/IEC standards 15and therefore it is not possible to rely on facts about their 16implementation in the local C library. For this reason, GNU gettext 17tries using the system's functionality only if it is a GNU gettext 18implementation (possibly a different version); otherwise, compatibility 19problems would occur. 20 21We felt that the Uniforum proposals has the much more flexible interface 22and, what is more important, does not burden the programmers as much as 23the other possibility does. 24 25 26Please share your results with us. If this package compiles ok for 27you future GNU release will likely also not fail, at least for reasons 28found in message handling. Send comments and bug reports to 29 bug-gnu-gettext@gnu.org 30 31 32The goal of this library was to give a unique interface to message 33handling functions. At least the same level of importance was to give 34the programmer/maintainer the needed tools to maintain the message 35catalogs. The interface is designed after the proposals of the 36Uniforum group. 37 38 39The homepage of this package is at 40 41 http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/ 42 43The primary FTP site for its distribution is 44 45 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gettext/ 46 47 48The configure script provides two non-standard options. These will 49also be available in other packages if they use the functionality of 50GNU gettext. Use 51 52 --disable-nls 53 54if you absolutely don't want to have messages handling code. You will 55always get the original messages (mostly English). You could consider 56using NLS support even when you do not need other tongues. If you do 57not install any messages catalogs or do not specify to use another but 58the C locale you will not get translations. 59 60The set of languages for which catalogs should be installed can also be 61specified while configuring. Of course they must be available but the 62intersection of these two sets are computed automatically. You could 63once and for all define in your profile/cshrc the variable LINGUAS: 64 65(Bourne Shell) LINGUAS="de fr nl"; export LINGUAS 66 67(C Shell) setenv LINGUAS "de fr nl" 68 69or specify it directly while configuring 70 71 env LINGUAS="de fr nl" ./configure 72 73Consult the manual for more information on language names. 74 75The second configure option is 76 77 --with-included-gettext 78 79This forces to use the GNU implementation of the message handling library 80regardless what the local C library provides. This possibility is 81useful if the local C library is a glibc 2.1.x or older, which didn't 82have all the features the included libintl has. 83 84 85Other files you might look into: 86 87`ABOUT-NLS' - current state of the GNU internationalization effort 88`COPYING' - copying conditions 89`INSTALL' - general compilation and installation rules 90`NEWS' - major changes in the current version 91`THANKS' - list of contributors 92 93 94Some points you might be interested in before installing the package: 95 961. If your system's C library already provides the gettext interface 97 and its associated tools don't come from this package, it might be 98 a good idea to configure the package with 99 --program-transform-name='s/^gettext$/g&/;s/^msgfmt$/g&/;s/^xgettext$/g&/' 100 101 Systems affected by this are: 102 Solaris 2.x 103 1042. Some system have a very dumb^H^H^H^Hstrange version of msgfmt, the 105 one which comes with xview. This one is *not* usable. It's best 106 you delete^H^H^H^H^H^Hrename it or install this package as in the 107 point above with 108 --program-transform-name='s/^gettext$/g&/;s/^msgfmt$/g&/;s/^xgettext$/g&/' 109 1103. The locale name alias scheme implemented here is in a similar form 111 implemented in the X Window System. Especially the alias data base 112 file can be shared. Normally this file is found at something like 113 114 /usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias 115 116 If you have the X Window System installed try to find this file and 117 specify the path at the make run: 118 119 make aliaspath='/usr/lib/X11/locale:/usr/local/lib/locale' 120 121 (or whatever is appropriate for you). The file name is always 122 locale.alias. 123 In the misc/ subdirectory you find an example for an alias database file. 124 1254. The msgmerge program performs fuzzy search in the message sets. It 126 might run a long time on slow systems. I saw this problem when running 127 it on my old i386DX25. The time can really be several minutes, 128 especially if you have long messages and/or a great number of 129 them. 130 If you have a faster implementation of the fstrcmp() function and 131 want to share it with the rest of us, please contact me. 132