Build multi-language support into your Linux application with catgets
Translator
© Photo by Leonardo Toshiro Okubo on Unsplash
To make programs useful to a worldwide audience, you need to build in support for multiple languages. Catgets is a tool that helps you reach beyond your mother tongue.
One way that programmers can help others use their software is to add multi-language support. I'm not talking about programming languages; I mean spoken languages. For example, you may have written your open source program to print information and error messages in English, but what if your user speaks only Spanish? Does your open source program also "speak" Spanish? What about German, French, Italian, and all the other languages spoken around the world?
To make programs truly useful, programmers should support internationalization. An easy way to do that is with the catgets library [1], the original Unix method for a program to retrieve messages and other strings in the user's preferred spoken language. The GNU library also includes a similar function called gettext, which uses a different lookup method. Whereas catgets uses three values to look up a message (the catalog, the message set, and the message number), gettext uses the message itself as the lookup value.
Catgets provides an interface to fetch strings from a special file called a catalog [2] that contains all the messages your program needs to print. The basic usage is to open the catalog, fetch messages from the catalog and print them, and then close the catalog.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.