bindtextdomain - set directory containing message catalogs
#include <libintl.h>
char * bindtextdomain (const char * domainname, const char * dirname);
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.
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.
The following error can occur, among others:
- ENOMEM
- Not enough memory available.
The return type ought to be
const char *, but is
char * to avoid
warnings in C code predating ANSI C.
gettext(3),
dgettext(3),
dcgettext(3),
ngettext(3),
dngettext(3),
dcngettext(3),
textdomain(3),
realpath(3)