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.\" Copyright (c) Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org>
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.\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
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.\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
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.\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
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.\" the License, or (at your option) any later version.
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.\" References consulted:
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.\" GNU glibc-2 source code and manual
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.\" GNU gettext source code and manual
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.\" LI18NUX 2000 Globalization Specification
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.TH NGETTEXT 3 "May 2001" "GNU gettext @VERSION@"
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ngettext, dngettext, dcngettext \- translate message and choose plural form
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.B #include <libintl.h>
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.BI "char * ngettext (const char * " msgid ", const char * " msgid_plural ,
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.BI " unsigned long int " n );
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.BI "char * dngettext (const char * " domainname ,
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.BI " const char * " msgid ", const char * " msgid_plural ,
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.BI " unsigned long int " n );
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.BI "char * dcngettext (const char * " domainname ,
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.BI " const char * " msgid ", const char * " msgid_plural ,
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.BI " unsigned long int " n ", int " category );
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The \fBngettext\fP, \fBdngettext\fP and \fBdcngettext\fP functions attempt to
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translate a text string into the user's native language, by looking up the
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appropriate plural form of the translation in a message catalog.
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Plural forms are grammatical variants depending on the a number. Some languages
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have two forms, called singular and plural. Other languages have three forms,
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called singular, dual and plural. There are also languages with four forms.
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The \fBngettext\fP, \fBdngettext\fP and \fBdcngettext\fP functions work like
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the \fBgettext\fP, \fBdgettext\fP and \fBdcgettext\fP functions, respectively.
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Additionally, they choose the appropriate plural form, which depends on the
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number \fIn\fP and the language of the message catalog where the translation
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In the "C" locale, or if none of the used catalogs contain a translation for
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\fImsgid\fP, the \fBngettext\fP, \fBdngettext\fP and \fBdcngettext\fP functions
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return \fImsgid\fP if \fIn\fP == 1, or \fImsgid_plural\fP if \fIn\fP != 1.
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If a translation was found in one of the specified catalogs, the appropriate
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plural form is converted to the locale's codeset and returned. The resulting
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string is statically allocated and must not be modified or freed. Otherwise
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\fImsgid\fP or \fImsgid_plural\fP is returned, as described above.
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\fBerrno\fP is not modified.
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The return type ought to be \fBconst char *\fP, but is \fBchar *\fP to avoid
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warnings in C code predating ANSI C.
added
removed
man/ngettext.3.in
