catopen(3C)                      UNIX System V                      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 catalogue to be opened.  If name
      contains a ``/'' then name specifies 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 message 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 variable provides both the location of message catalogues, in
      the form of a search path, and the naming conventions associated 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.





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catopen(3C)                      UNIX System V                      catopen(3C)


            %t   The value of the territory element of LANG.

            %c   The value of the codeset element of LANG.

            %%   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 descriptor 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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