NGETTEXT(3)							   NGETTEXT(3)



NAME
       ngettext,  dngettext,  dcngettext - translate message and choose plural
       form

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       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 users native language, by looking up the appro
       priate 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 plural. Other languages
       have three forms, called singular, dual and plural. There are also lan
       guages 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 catalog where the translation was found.

       In the "C" locale, or if none of the used catalogs contain  a  transla
       tion for msgid, the ngettext, dngettext and dcngettext 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 appro
       priate  plural  form is converted to the locales 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  warn
       ings in C code predating ANSI C.

SEE ALSO
       gettext(3), dgettext(3), dcgettext(3)



GNU gettext 0.16.1		   May 2001			   NGETTEXT(3)