gettxt(1)                                                            gettxt(1)


NAME
     gettxt - retrieve a text string from a message database

SYNOPSIS
     gettxt msgfile:msgnum [dflt_msg]

DESCRIPTION
     gettxt retrieves a text string from a message file in the directory
     /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES.  The directory name locale
     corresponds to the language in which the text strings are written; see
     setlocale(3C) and environ(5).

     msgfile   Name of the file from which to retrieve msgnum.  The name can
               be up to 14 characters in length, but may not contain either \0
               (NULL) or the characters / (slash) or :  (colon).

     msgnum    Sequence number of the string to retrieve from msgfile.  The
               strings in msgfile are numbered sequentially from 1 to n, where
               n is the number of strings in the file.

     dflt_msg  Default string to be displayed if gettxt fails to retrieve
               msgnum from msgfile.  Nongraphic characters must be represented
               as alphabetic escape sequences.

     The text string to be retrieved is in the file msgfile, created by the
     mkmsgs(1) utility and installed under the directory
     /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES.  The directory searched is specified
     by the environment variable LC_MESSAGES.  If LC_MESSAGES is not set, the
     environment variable LANG will be used.  If LANG is not set, the files
     containing the strings are under the directory
     /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES.

     If gettxt fails to retrieve a message in the requested language, it will
     try to retrieve the same message from
     /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES/msgfile.  If this also fails, and if
     dflt_msg is present and non-empty, then it will display the value of
     dflt_msg; if dflt_msg is not present or is empty, then it will display
     the string Message not found!!\n.  If the environment variables LANG or
     LC_MESSAGES have not been set to other than their default values,
          gettxt UX:10 "hello world\n"

     will try to retrieve the 10th message from
     /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES/UX.  If the retrieval fails, the message
     hello world, followed by a newline, will be displayed.

FILES
     /usr/lib/locale/C/LC_MESSAGES/*
          default message files created by mkmsgs(1)
     /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/*
          language-specific message files created by mkmsgs(1)


     /usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore.abi
          language-specific message file for gettxt
SEE ALSO
     exstr(1), mkmsgs(1), srchtxt(1), gettxt(3C), setlocale(3C)


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