The gettext.sh approach (GNU gettext utilities)

16.5.15.2 The gettext.sh approach ¶

This approach uses shell functions defined in the gettext.sh file.

Here’s an example that references a shell variable pid:

eval_gettext "Running as process number \$pid."; echo

A ready-to-use example is available in the hello-1.sh file in the examples/hello-sh directory.

Contents of gettext.sh ¶

gettext.sh, contained in the run-time package of GNU gettext, provides the following:

$echo

The variable echo is set to a command that outputs its first argument and a newline, without interpreting backslashes in the argument string.

eval_gettext

See Invoking the eval_gettext function.

eval_ngettext

See Invoking the eval_ngettext function.

eval_pgettext

See Invoking the eval_pgettext function.

eval_npgettext

See Invoking the eval_npgettext function.

Advantages and Drawbacks ¶

Advantages:

• Portability: This is fully portable.

Drawbacks:

• The strings passed to the eval_gettext et al. functions must not start nor end with a newline. This means, in order to add a newline after a message, you need to add an explicit invocation of echo.
• References to shell variables must be introduced with ‘\$’, not just ‘$’.
• Speed: Each invocation of the eval_gettext et al. functions uses a pipe and a subshell. This is slower than the printf_gettext approach.

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