gettext: gettext Invocation

 
 15.5.12.3 Invoking the ‘gettext’ program
 ........................................
 
      gettext [OPTION] [[TEXTDOMAIN] MSGID]
      gettext [OPTION] -s [MSGID]...
 
    The ‘gettext’ program displays the native language translation of a
 textual message.
 
 *Arguments*
 
 ‘-c CONTEXT’
 ‘--context=CONTEXT’
      Specify the context for the messages to be translated.  See ⇒
      Contexts for details.
 
 ‘-d TEXTDOMAIN’
 ‘--domain=TEXTDOMAIN’
      Retrieve translated messages from TEXTDOMAIN.  Usually a TEXTDOMAIN
      corresponds to a package, a program, or a module of a program.
 
 ‘-e’
      Enable expansion of some escape sequences.  This option is for
      compatibility with the ‘echo’ program or shell built-in.  The
      escape sequences ‘\a’, ‘\b’, ‘\c’, ‘\f’, ‘\n’, ‘\r’, ‘\t’, ‘\v’,
      ‘\\’, and ‘\’ followed by one to three octal digits, are
      interpreted like the System V ‘echo’ program did.
 
 ‘-E’
      This option is only for compatibility with the ‘echo’ program or
      shell built-in.  It has no effect.
 
 ‘-h’
 ‘--help’
      Display this help and exit.
 
 ‘-n’
      This option has only an effect if the ‘-s’ option is given.  It
      suppresses the additional newline at the end.
 
 ‘-V’
 ‘--version’
      Output version information and exit.
 
 ‘[TEXTDOMAIN] MSGID’
      Retrieve translated message corresponding to MSGID from TEXTDOMAIN.
 
    If the TEXTDOMAIN parameter is not given, the domain is determined
 from the environment variable ‘TEXTDOMAIN’.  If the message catalog is
 not found in the regular directory, another location can be specified
 with the environment variable ‘TEXTDOMAINDIR’.
 
    When used with the ‘-s’ option the program behaves like the ‘echo’
 command.  But it does not simply copy its arguments to stdout.  Instead
 those messages found in the selected catalog are translated.  Also, a
 newline is added at the end, unless either the option ‘-n’ is specified
 or the option ‘-e’ is specified and some of the argument strings
 contains a ‘\c’ escape sequence.
 
    Note: ‘xgettext’ supports only the one-argument form of the ‘gettext’
 invocation, where no options are present and the TEXTDOMAIN is implicit,
 from the environment.