Re: Locale (Was: gencat)

[Valeriy E. Ushakov]

ReHi!

On Sun, 21 May 1995, Ted Harding wrote:

> ( Re Message From: Valeriy E. Ushakov )
> > 
> > Hello, localized and unlocalized people!
[...]
> Thanks, Valeriy,  for the info,  and for  your gentle ways  with the
> ignorant.

/* Uph... Nice to here this from a native speaker. */

[ pulled here from the very end of message ]
> (The makefile, by the way, does not seem
> to refer to gencat).

This is a passage from makefile comments:

(4) Set macro USELOC to one of the following values, NOT TO A LOCALE.

    0         This value means to compile without including <locale.h> or 
              <nl_types.h>, and without calls to setlocale(), catopen(), 
              catgets(), or catclose(), and is appropriate for all sites. 
 
    1         This value means to compile with setlocale() etc.  The only 
              use made of this is to print error messages in the locale 
              language if available, i.e., if setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "") 
              returns locale X and $(LIBDIR)/locale/X/LC_MESSAGES/errors.X
              can be opened by catopen().  This is where error messages 
              for locale X are stored.  This flag has no effect on the 
              Lout input language, and it never will. 
 
    For further information consult file lout/locale/README. 


And in z01.c:main

        case CH_FLAG_INITALL:
            ....
#if LOCALE_ON
            ....
              sprintf(dir, "%s/%s/LC_MESSAGES", LOCALE_DIR, buff);
              sprintf(file1, "%s/errors.%s", dir, buff);
              sprintf(file2, "%s/msgs.%s", dir, buff);
              sprintf(com, SYSTEM_GENCAT, file1, file2);
              debug1(DHY, D, "-x calling system(\"%s\")", com);
              system(com);
            ....
#endif 

Perhaps a call to gencat could be made a part of make process rather
than hardwired in lout?

> It indeed looks as if one can do without it, provided English messages are
> acceptable. I did an "archie" for gencat, and could only find it for BSD
> (except under nls for elm sources): doesn't come up under Linux. So this
> does raise the question: what should Linux folks do if they want to use
> the LOCALE possibilities of lout?

I believe gencat is more or less standard now. Right now I can recall
that I saw it in Interactive 3.2 (aka ISC 3.2), Ultrix-4.* (not shure
about 3.*, but 99% it was there) and SunOS-4.1.3. Since I was never
interested in localizing messages I may be wrong, but under some
disguise, perhaps, it can be found almost everywhere. If memory serves
me right it's part of some X/Open standard.

BTW, elm has an implementation of gencat (you found with your archie
search) that compiles message archives. Client needs catopen / catgets
/ catgetmsg / catclose nls library and I believe that BSD sources will
compile and run pretty well.

Hope it helps.

> Ted.                                    (address@hidden)

Best regards!

SY, Uwe.
--------
Valeriy E. Ushakov (aka Uwe)            |       Zu Grunde kommen
address@hidden                         |       Ist zu Grunde gehen