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NGETTEXT(3)                                    Library Functions Manual                                   NGETTEXT(3)



NAME
       ngettext, dngettext, dcngettext - translate message and choose plural form

SYNOPSIS
       #include <libintl.h>

       char * ngettext (const char * msgid, const char * msgid_plural,
                        unsigned long int n);
       char * dngettext (const char * domainname,
                         const char * msgid, const char * msgid_plural,
                         unsigned long int n);
       char * dcngettext (const char * domainname,
                          const char * msgid, const char * msgid_plural,
                          unsigned long int n, int category);

DESCRIPTION
       The  ngettext,  dngettext  and  dcngettext functions attempt to translate a text string into the user's native
       language, by looking up the appropriate plural form of the translation in a message catalog.

       Plural forms are grammatical variants depending on the a number. Some languages have two forms, called  singu‐
       lar  and  plural. Other languages have three forms, called singular, dual and plural. There are also languages
       with four forms.

       The ngettext, dngettext and dcngettext functions work like the  gettext,  dgettext  and  dcgettext  functions,
       respectively.   Additionally,  they  choose the appropriate plural form, which depends on the number n and the
       language of the message catalog where the translation was found.

       In the "C" locale, or if none of the used catalogs contain a translation for msgid,  the  ngettext,  dngettext
       and dcngettext functions return msgid if n == 1, or msgid_plural if n != 1.

RETURN VALUE
       If  a  translation was found in one of the specified catalogs, the appropriate plural form is converted to the
       locale's codeset and returned. The resulting string is statically allocated and must not be modified or freed.
       Otherwise msgid or msgid_plural is returned, as described above.

ERRORS
       errno is not modified.

BUGS
       The return type ought to be const char *, but is char * to avoid warnings in C code predating ANSI C.

SEE ALSO
       gettext(3), dgettext(3), dcgettext(3)



GNU gettext 0.18.2                                     May 2001                                           NGETTEXT(3)