gettext: Temp Implementations
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1 11.6.1 Temporary - Two Possible Implementations
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1 There are two competing methods for language independent messages:
1 the X/Open ‘catgets’ method, and the Uniforum ‘gettext’ method. The
1 ‘catgets’ method indexes messages by integers; the ‘gettext’ method
1 indexes them by their English translations. The ‘catgets’ method has
1 been around longer and is supported by more vendors. The ‘gettext’
1 method is supported by Sun, and it has been heard that the COSE
1 multi-vendor initiative is supporting it. Neither method is a POSIX
1 standard; the POSIX.1 committee had a lot of disagreement in this area.
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1 Neither one is in the POSIX standard. There was much disagreement in
1 the POSIX.1 committee about using the ‘gettext’ routines vs. ‘catgets’
1 (XPG). In the end the committee couldn’t agree on anything, so no
1 messaging system was included as part of the standard. I believe the
1 informative annex of the standard includes the XPG3 messaging
1 interfaces, “…as an example of a messaging system that has been
1 implemented…”
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1 They were very careful not to say anywhere that you should use one
1 set of interfaces over the other. For more on this topic please see the
1 Programming for Internationalization FAQ.
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