NGETTEXT(3)                                                                                                          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 singular and  plu-
       ral. 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 cat-
       alog 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 dcnget-
       text 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 0.18.1                                          May 2001                                                 NGETTEXT(3)