10.2.3 Locating Message Catalog Files

Because many different languages for many different packages have to be stored we need some way to add these information to file message catalog files. The way usually used in Unix environments is have this encoding in the file name. This is also done here. The directory name given in bindtextdomains second argument (or the default directory), followed by the value and name of the locale and the domain name are concatenated:

dir_name/locale/LC_category/domain_name.mo

The default value for dir_name is system specific. For the GNU library, and for packages adhering to its conventions, it's:

/usr/local/share/locale

locale is the value of the locale whose name is this LC_category. For gettext and dgettext this LC_category is always LC_MESSAGES.(3) The value of the locale is determined through setlocale (LC_category, NULL). (4) dcgettext specifies the locale category by the third argument.