BIND_TEXTDOMAIN_CODESET(3)			    BIND_TEXTDOMAIN_CODESET(3)



NAME
       bind_textdomain_codeset - set encoding of message translations

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       char * bind_textdomain_codeset (const char * domainname,
				       const char * codeset);

DESCRIPTION
       The  bind_textdomain_codeset  function sets the output codeset for mes
       sage catalogs for domain domainname.

       A message domain is a set  of  translatable  msgid  messages.  Usually,
       every software package has its own message domain.

       By default, the gettext family of functions returns translated messages
       in the locales character encoding, which can be retrieved as  nl_lang
       info(CODESET).  The need for calling bind_textdomain_codeset arises for
       programs which store strings in a locale independent way (e.g.	UTF-8)
       and  want  to  avoid  an extra character set conversion on the returned
       translated messages.

       domainname must be a non-empty string.

       If codeset is not NULL, it must be a valid encoding name which  can  be
       used  for the iconv_open function. The bind_textdomain_codeset function
       sets the output	codeset  for  message  catalogs  belonging  to	domain
       domainname  to  codeset.  The  function	makes  copies  of the argument
       strings as needed.

       If codeset is NULL, the function returns the previously set codeset for
       domain domainname. The default is NULL, denoting the locales character
       encoding.

RETURN VALUE
       If successful, the bind_textdomain_codeset function returns the current
       codeset	for domain domainname, after possibly changing it. The result
       ing string is valid until the next bind_textdomain_codeset call for the
       same  domainname and must not be modified or freed. If a memory alloca
       tion failure occurs, it sets errno to ENOMEM and returns  NULL.	If  no
       codeset has been set for domain domainname, it returns NULL.

ERRORS
       The following error can occur, among others:

       ENOMEM Not enough memory available.

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

SEE ALSO
       gettext(3),  dgettext(3),  dcgettext(3),   ngettext(3),	 dngettext(3),
       dcngettext(3), textdomain(3), nl_langinfo(3), iconv_open(3)



GNU gettext 0.16.1		   May 2001	    BIND_TEXTDOMAIN_CODESET(3)