catopen(3C)          COMPATIBILITY FUNCTIONS          catopen(3C)



NAME
     catopen, catclose - open/close a message catalogue

SYNOPSIS
     #include <nltypes.h>

     nlcatd catopen (char *name, int oflag);

     int catclose (nlcatd catd);

DESCRIPTION
     catopen opens a message catalogue and  returns  a  catalogue
     descriptor.   name specifies the name of the message catalo-
     gue to be opened.  If name contains a ``/'' then name speci-
     fies  a  pathname for the message catalogue.  Otherwise, the
     environment variable NLSPATH is used.  If NLSPATH  does  not
     exist  in  the environment, or if a message catalogue cannot
     be opened in any of the paths specified by NLSPATH, then the
     default  path  is used [see nltypes(5)].  The names of mes-
     sage catalogues, and their location in  the  filestore,  can
     vary  from  one  system to another.  Individual applications
     can choose to name or locate message catalogues according to
     their  own special needs.  A mechanism is therefore required
     to specify where the catalogue resides.  The  NLSPATH  vari-
     able  provides  both  the location of message catalogues, in
     the form of a search path, and the naming conventions  asso-
     ciated with message catalogue files.  For example:

          NLSPATH=/nlslib/%L/%N.cat:/nlslib/%N/%L

     The metacharacter % introduces a substitution  field,  where
     %L  substitutes  the current setting of the LANG environment
     variable (see following section),  and  %N  substitutes  the
     value of the name parameter passed to catopen.  Thus, in the
     above     example,     catopen      will      search      in
     /nlslib/$LANG/name.cat,  then in /nlslib/name/$LANG, for the
     required message catalogue.  NLSPATH will normally be set up
     on  a  system  wide  basis  (e.g., in /etc/profile) and thus
     makes the location and naming  conventions  associated  with
     message  catalogues  transparent to both programs and users.
     The full set of metacharacters is:

          %N   The value of the name parameter passed to catopen.

          %L   The value of LANG.

          %l   The value of the language element of LANG.

          %t   The value of the territory element of LANG.

          %c   The value of the codeset element of LANG.




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catopen(3C)          COMPATIBILITY FUNCTIONS          catopen(3C)



          %%   A single %.
     The  LANG  environment  variable  provides  the  ability  to
     specify  the user's requirements for native languages, local
     customs and character set, as an ASCII string in the form

          LANG=language[territory[.codeset]]

     A user who speaks German as it is spoken in Austria and  has
     a  terminal which operates in ISO 8859/1 codeset, would want
     the setting of the LANG variable to be

          LANG=DeA.88591

     With this setting it should be possible  for  that  user  to
     find any relevant catalogues should they exist.

     Should the LANG variable  not  be  set  then  the  value  of
     LCMESSAGES  as  returned  by setlocale is used.  If this is
     NULL then the default path as defined in nltypes  is  used.
     oflag  is  reserved  for  future use and should be set to 0.
     The results of setting this field to  any  other  value  are
     undefined.  catclose closes the message catalogue identified
     by catd.

SEE ALSO
     catgets(3C), setlocale(3C), environ(5), nltypes(5).

DIAGNOSTICS
     If successful, catopen returns a message catalogue  descrip-
     tor  for  use  on  subsequent calls to catgets and catclose.
     Otherwise catopen returns (nlcatd) -1.  catclose returns  0
     if successful, otherwise -1.























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