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 11.2 About `gettext'
 ====================
 
 The definition of the `gettext' interface comes from a Uniforum
 proposal.  It was submitted there by Sun, who had implemented the
 `gettext' function in SunOS 4, around 1990.  Nowadays, the `gettext'
 interface is specified by the OpenI18N standard.
 
    The main point about this solution is that it does not follow the
 method of normal file handling (open-use-close) and that it does not
 burden the programmer with so many tasks, especially the unique key
 handling.  Of course here also a unique key is needed, but this key is
 the message itself (how long or short it is).  See  Comparison
 for a more detailed comparison of the two methods.
 
    The following section contains a rather detailed description of the
 interface.  We make it that detailed because this is the interface we
 chose for the GNU `gettext' Library.  Programmers interested in using
 this library will be interested in this description.
 

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* Interface to gettext        The interface
* Ambiguities                 Solving ambiguities
* Locating Catalogs           Locating message catalog files
* Charset conversion          How to request conversion to Unicode
* Contexts                    Solving ambiguities in GUI programs
* Plural forms                Additional functions for handling plurals
* Optimized gettext           Optimization of the *gettext functions
 
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