Provided by: manpages-posix_2017a-2_all 
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of
this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of
Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
gencat — generate a formatted message catalog
SYNOPSIS
gencat catfile msgfile...
DESCRIPTION
The gencat utility shall merge the message text source file msgfile into a formatted
message catalog catfile. The file catfile shall be created if it does not already exist.
If catfile does exist, its messages shall be included in the new catfile. If set and
message numbers collide, the new message text defined in msgfile shall replace the old
message text currently contained in catfile.
OPTIONS
None.
OPERANDS
The following operands shall be supported:
catfile A pathname of the formatted message catalog. If '-' is specified, standard
output shall be used. The format of the message catalog produced is unspecified.
msgfile A pathname of a message text source file. If '-' is specified for an instance of
msgfile, standard input shall be used. The format of message text source files
is defined in the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.
STDIN
The standard input shall not be used unless a msgfile operand is specified as '-'.
INPUT FILES
The input files shall be text files.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of gencat:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
null. (See the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization
variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other
internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data
as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in
arguments and input files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of
diagnostic messages written to standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The standard output shall not be used unless the catfile operand is specified as '-'.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
The content of a message text file shall be in the format defined as follows. Note that
the fields of a message text source line are separated by a single <blank> character. Any
other <blank> characters are considered to be part of the subsequent field.
$set n comment
This line specifies the set identifier of the following messages until the next
$set or end-of-file appears. The n denotes the set identifier, which is defined
as a number in the range [1, {NL_SETMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header defined in
the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017). The application shall ensure that
set identifiers are presented in ascending order within a single source file,
but need not be contiguous. Any string following the set identifier shall be
treated as a comment. If no $set directive is specified in a message text source
file, all messages shall be located in an implementation-defined default message
set NL_SETD (see the <nl_types.h> header defined in the Base Definitions volume
of POSIX.1‐2017).
$delset n comment
This line deletes message set n from an existing message catalog. The n denotes
the set number [1, {NL_SETMAX}]. Any string following the set number shall be
treated as a comment.
$ comment A line beginning with '$' followed by a <blank> shall be treated as a comment.
m message-text
The m denotes the message identifier, which is defined as a number in the range
[1, {NL_MSGMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header). The message-text shall be stored
in the message catalog with the set identifier specified by the last $set
directive, and with message identifier m. If the message-text is empty, and a
<blank> field separator is present, an empty string shall be stored in the
message catalog. If a message source line has a message number, but neither a
field separator nor message-text, the existing message with that number (if any)
shall be deleted from the catalog. The application shall ensure that message
identifiers are in ascending order within a single set, but need not be
contiguous. The application shall ensure that the length of message-text is in
the range [0, {NL_TEXTMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header).
$quote n This line specifies an optional quote character c, which can be used to surround
message-text so that trailing <space> characters or null (empty) messages are
visible in a message source line. By default, or if an empty $quote directive is
supplied, no quoting of message-text shall be recognized.
Empty lines in a message text source file shall be ignored. The effects of lines starting
with any character other than those defined above are implementation-defined.
Text strings can contain the special characters and escape sequences defined in the
following table:
┌──────────────────┬────────┬──────────┐
│ Description │ Symbol │ Sequence │
├──────────────────┼────────┼──────────┤
│<newline> │ NL(LF) │ \n │
│Horizontal-tab │ HT │ \t │
│<vertical-tab> │ VT │ \v │
│<backspace> │ BS │ \b │
│<carriage-return> │ CR │ \r │
│<form-feed> │ FF │ \f │
│Backslash │ \ │ \\ │
│Bit pattern │ ddd │ \ddd │
└──────────────────┴────────┴──────────┘
The escape sequence "\ddd" consists of <backslash> followed by one, two, or three octal
digits, which shall be taken to specify the value of the desired character. If the
character following a <backslash> is not one of those specified, the <backslash> shall be
ignored.
A <backslash> followed by a <newline> is also used to continue a string on the following
line. Thus, the following two lines describe a single message string:
1 This line continues \
to the next line
which shall be equivalent to:
1 This line continues to the next line
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
Message catalogs produced by gencat are binary encoded, meaning that their portability
cannot be guaranteed between different types of machine. Thus, just as C programs need to
be recompiled for each type of machine, so message catalogs must be recreated via gencat.
EXAMPLES
None.
RATIONALE
None.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
iconv
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment Variables, <limits.h>,
<nl_types.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface
(POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .