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13 <head>
14 <title>GNU gettext utilities: 2. The User's View</title>
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44 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
45 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_1.html#SEC1" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
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47 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
48 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
49 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
50 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
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52 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
53 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
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55 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
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57
58 <hr size="2">
59 <a name="Users"></a>
60 <a name="SEC7"></a>
61 <h1 class="chapter"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC7">2. The User's View</a> </h1>
62
63 <p>Nowadays, when users log into a computer, they usually find that all
64 their programs show messages in their native language &ndash; at least for
65 users of languages with an active free software community, like French or
66 German; to a lesser extent for languages with a smaller participation in
67 free software and the GNU project, like Hindi and Filipino.
68 </p>
69 <p>How does this work? How can the user influence the language that is used
70 by the programs? This chapter will answer it.
71 </p>
72
73
74 <a name="System-Installation"></a>
75 <a name="SEC8"></a>
76 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC8">2.1 Operating System Installation</a> </h2>
77
78 <p>The default language is often already specified during operating system
79 installation. When the operating system is installed, the installer
80 typically asks for the language used for the installation process and,
81 separately, for the language to use in the installed system. Some OS
82 installers only ask for the language once.
83 </p>
84 <p>This determines the system-wide default language for all users. But the
85 installers often give the possibility to install extra localizations for
86 additional languages. For example, the localizations of KDE (the K
87 Desktop Environment) and LibreOffice are often bundled separately, as one
88 installable package per language.
89 </p>
90 <p>At this point it is good to consider the intended use of the machine: If
91 it is a machine designated for personal use, additional localizations are
92 probably not necessary. If, however, the machine is in use in an
93 organization or company that has international relationships, one can
94 consider the needs of guest users. If you have a guest from abroad, for
95 a week, what could be his preferred locales? It may be worth installing
96 these additional localizations ahead of time, since they cost only a bit
97 of disk space at this point.
98 </p>
99 <p>The system-wide default language is the locale configuration that is used
100 when a new user account is created. But the user can have his own locale
101 configuration that is different from the one of the other users of the
102 same machine. He can specify it, typically after the first login, as
103 described in the next section.
104 </p>
105
106 <a name="Setting-the-GUI-Locale"></a>
107 <a name="SEC9"></a>
108 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC9">2.2 Setting the Locale Used by GUI Programs</a> </h2>
109
110 <p>The immediately available programs in a user's desktop come from a group
111 of programs called a &ldquo;desktop environment&rdquo;; it usually includes the window
112 manager, a web browser, a text editor, and more. The most common free
113 desktop environments are KDE, GNOME, and Xfce.
114 </p>
115 <p>The locale used by GUI programs of the desktop environment can be specified
116 in a configuration screen called &ldquo;control center&rdquo;, &ldquo;language settings&rdquo;
117 or &ldquo;country settings&rdquo;.
118 </p>
119 <p>Individual GUI programs that are not part of the desktop environment can
120 have their locale specified either in a settings panel, or through environment
121 variables.
122 </p>
123 <p>For some programs, it is possible to specify the locale through environment
124 variables, possibly even to a different locale than the desktop's locale.
125 This means, instead of starting a program through a menu or from the file
126 system, you can start it from the command-line, after having set some
127 environment variables. The environment variables can be those specified
128 in the next section (<a href="#SEC10">Setting the Locale through Environment Variables</a>); for some versions of
129 KDE, however, the locale is specified through a variable <code>KDE_LANG</code>,
130 rather than <code>LANG</code> or <code>LC_ALL</code>.
131 </p>
132
133 <a name="Setting-the-POSIX-Locale"></a>
134 <a name="SEC10"></a>
135 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC10">2.3 Setting the Locale through Environment Variables</a> </h2>
136
137 <p>As a user, if your language has been installed for this package, in the
138 simplest case, you only have to set the <code>LANG</code> environment variable
139 to the appropriate &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var>_<var>CC</var></samp>&rsquo; combination. For example,
140 let's suppose that you speak German and live in Germany. At the shell
141 prompt, merely execute
142 &lsquo;<samp>setenv LANG de_DE</samp>&rsquo; (in <code>csh</code>),
143 &lsquo;<samp>export LANG; LANG=de_DE</samp>&rsquo; (in <code>sh</code>) or
144 &lsquo;<samp>export LANG=de_DE</samp>&rsquo; (in <code>bash</code>). This can be done from your
145 &lsquo;<tt>.login</tt>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<tt>.profile</tt>&rsquo; file, once and for all.
146 </p>
147
148
149 <a name="Locale-Names"></a>
150 <a name="SEC11"></a>
151 <h3 class="subsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC11">2.3.1 Locale Names</a> </h3>
152
153 <p>A locale name usually has the form &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var>_<var>CC</var></samp>&rsquo;. Here
154 &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var></samp>&rsquo; is an ISO 639 two-letter language code, and
155 &lsquo;<samp><var>CC</var></samp>&rsquo; is an ISO 3166 two-letter country code. For example,
156 for German in Germany, <var>ll</var> is <code>de</code>, and <var>CC</var> is <code>DE</code>.
157 You find a list of the language codes in appendix <a href="gettext_18.html#SEC373">Language Codes</a> and
158 a list of the country codes in appendix <a href="gettext_19.html#SEC376">Country Codes</a>.
159 </p>
160 <p>You might think that the country code specification is redundant. But in
161 fact, some languages have dialects in different countries. For example,
162 &lsquo;<samp>de_AT</samp>&rsquo; is used for Austria, and &lsquo;<samp>pt_BR</samp>&rsquo; for Brazil. The country
163 code serves to distinguish the dialects.
164 </p>
165 <p>Many locale names have an extended syntax
166 &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var>_<var>CC</var>.<var>encoding</var></samp>&rsquo; that also specifies the character
167 encoding. These are in use because between 2000 and 2005, most users have
168 switched to locales in UTF-8 encoding. For example, the German locale on
169 glibc systems is nowadays &lsquo;<samp>de_DE.UTF-8</samp>&rsquo;. The older name &lsquo;<samp>de_DE</samp>&rsquo;
170 still refers to the German locale as of 2000 that stores characters in
171 ISO-8859-1 encoding &ndash; a text encoding that cannot even accommodate the Euro
172 currency sign.
173 </p>
174 <p>Some locale names use &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var>_<var>CC</var>@<var>variant</var></samp>&rsquo; instead of
175 &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var>_<var>CC</var></samp>&rsquo;. The &lsquo;<samp>@<var>variant</var></samp>&rsquo; can denote any kind of
176 characteristics that is not already implied by the language <var>ll</var> and
177 the country <var>CC</var>. It can denote a particular monetary unit. For example,
178 on glibc systems, &lsquo;<samp>de_DE@euro</samp>&rsquo; denotes the locale that uses the Euro
179 currency, in contrast to the older locale &lsquo;<samp>de_DE</samp>&rsquo; which implies the use
180 of the currency before 2002. It can also denote a dialect of the language,
181 or the script used to write text (for example, &lsquo;<samp>sr_RS@latin</samp>&rsquo; uses the
182 Latin script, whereas &lsquo;<samp>sr_RS</samp>&rsquo; uses the Cyrillic script to write Serbian),
183 or the orthography rules, or similar.
184 </p>
185 <p>On other systems, some variations of this scheme are used, such as
186 &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var></samp>&rsquo;. You can get the list of locales supported by your system
187 for your language by running the command &lsquo;<samp>locale -a | grep '^<var>ll</var>'</samp>&rsquo;.
188 </p>
189 <p>There is also a special locale, called &lsquo;<samp>C</samp>&rsquo;.
190 When it is used, it disables all localization: in this locale, all programs
191 standardized by POSIX use English messages and an unspecified character
192 encoding (often US-ASCII, but sometimes also ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8, depending on
193 the operating system).
194 </p>
195
196 <a name="Locale-Environment-Variables"></a>
197 <a name="SEC12"></a>
198 <h3 class="subsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC12">2.3.2 Locale Environment Variables</a> </h3>
199
200 <p>A locale is composed of several <em>locale categories</em>, see <a href="gettext_1.html#SEC4">Aspects in Native Language Support</a>.
201 When a program looks up locale dependent values, it does this according to
202 the following environment variables, in priority order:
203 </p>
204 <ol>
205 <li><a name="IDX33"></a>
206 </li><li> <code>LANGUAGE</code>
207 <a name="IDX34"></a>
208 </li><li> <code>LC_ALL</code>
209 <a name="IDX35"></a>
210 <a name="IDX36"></a>
211 <a name="IDX37"></a>
212 <a name="IDX38"></a>
213 <a name="IDX39"></a>
214 <a name="IDX40"></a>
215 </li><li> <code>LC_xxx</code>, according to selected locale category:
216 <code>LC_CTYPE</code>, <code>LC_NUMERIC</code>, <code>LC_TIME</code>, <code>LC_COLLATE</code>,
217 <code>LC_MONETARY</code>, <code>LC_MESSAGES</code>, ...
218 <a name="IDX41"></a>
219 </li><li> <code>LANG</code>
220 </li></ol>
221
222 <p>Variables whose value is set but is empty are ignored in this lookup.
223 </p>
224 <p><code>LANG</code> is the normal environment variable for specifying a locale.
225 As a user, you normally set this variable (unless some of the other variables
226 have already been set by the system, in &lsquo;<tt>/etc/profile</tt>&rsquo; or similar
227 initialization files).
228 </p>
229 <p><code>LC_CTYPE</code>, <code>LC_NUMERIC</code>, <code>LC_TIME</code>, <code>LC_COLLATE</code>,
230 <code>LC_MONETARY</code>, <code>LC_MESSAGES</code>, and so on, are the environment
231 variables meant to override <code>LANG</code> and affecting a single locale
232 category only. For example, assume you are a Swedish user in Spain, and you
233 want your programs to handle numbers and dates according to Spanish
234 conventions, and only the messages should be in Swedish. Then you could
235 create a locale named &lsquo;<samp>sv_ES</samp>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<samp>sv_ES.UTF-8</samp>&rsquo; by use of the
236 <code>localedef</code> program. But it is simpler, and achieves the same effect,
237 to set the <code>LANG</code> variable to <code>es_ES.UTF-8</code> and the
238 <code>LC_MESSAGES</code> variable to <code>sv_SE.UTF-8</code>; these two locales come
239 already preinstalled with the operating system.
240 </p>
241 <p><code>LC_ALL</code> is an environment variable that overrides all of these.
242 It is typically used in scripts that run particular programs. For example,
243 <code>configure</code> scripts generated by GNU autoconf use <code>LC_ALL</code> to make
244 sure that the configuration tests don't operate in locale dependent ways.
245 </p>
246 <p>Some systems, unfortunately, set <code>LC_ALL</code> in &lsquo;<tt>/etc/profile</tt>&rsquo; or in
247 similar initialization files. As a user, you therefore have to unset this
248 variable if you want to set <code>LANG</code> and optionally some of the other
249 <code>LC_xxx</code> variables.
250 </p>
251 <p>The <code>LANGUAGE</code> variable is described in the next subsection.
252 </p>
253
254 <a name="The-LANGUAGE-variable"></a>
255 <a name="SEC13"></a>
256 <h3 class="subsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC13">2.3.3 Specifying a Priority List of Languages</a> </h3>
257
258 <p>Not all programs have translations for all languages. By default, an
259 English message is shown in place of a nonexistent translation. If you
260 understand other languages, you can set up a priority list of languages.
261 This is done through a different environment variable, called
262 <code>LANGUAGE</code>. GNU <code>gettext</code> gives preference to <code>LANGUAGE</code>
263 over <code>LC_ALL</code> and <code>LANG</code> for the purpose of message handling,
264 but you still need to have <code>LANG</code> (or <code>LC_ALL</code>) set to the primary
265 language; this is required by other parts of the system libraries.
266 For example, some Swedish users who would rather read translations in
267 German than English for when Swedish is not available, set <code>LANGUAGE</code>
268 to &lsquo;<samp>sv:de</samp>&rsquo; while leaving <code>LANG</code> to &lsquo;<samp>sv_SE</samp>&rsquo;.
269 </p>
270 <p>Special advice for Norwegian users: The language code for Norwegian
271 bokm&aring;l changed from &lsquo;<samp>no</samp>&rsquo; to &lsquo;<samp>nb</samp>&rsquo; recently (in 2003).
272 During the transition period, while some message catalogs for this language
273 are installed under &lsquo;<samp>nb</samp>&rsquo; and some older ones under &lsquo;<samp>no</samp>&rsquo;, it is
274 recommended for Norwegian users to set <code>LANGUAGE</code> to &lsquo;<samp>nb:no</samp>&rsquo; so that
275 both newer and older translations are used.
276 </p>
277 <p>In the <code>LANGUAGE</code> environment variable, but not in the other
278 environment variables, &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var>_<var>CC</var></samp>&rsquo; combinations can be
279 abbreviated as &lsquo;<samp><var>ll</var></samp>&rsquo; to denote the language's main dialect.
280 For example, &lsquo;<samp>de</samp>&rsquo; is equivalent to &lsquo;<samp>de_DE</samp>&rsquo; (German as spoken in
281 Germany), and &lsquo;<samp>pt</samp>&rsquo; to &lsquo;<samp>pt_PT</samp>&rsquo; (Portuguese as spoken in Portugal)
282 in this context.
283 </p>
284 <p>Note: The variable <code>LANGUAGE</code> is ignored if the locale is set to
285 &lsquo;<samp>C</samp>&rsquo;. In other words, you have to first enable localization, by setting
286 <code>LANG</code> (or <code>LC_ALL</code>) to a value other than &lsquo;<samp>C</samp>&rsquo;, before you can
287 use a language priority list through the <code>LANGUAGE</code> variable.
288 </p>
289
290 <a name="Working-in-a-Windows-console"></a>
291 <a name="SEC14"></a>
292 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC14">2.4 Obtaining good output in a Windows console</a> </h2>
293
294 <p>On Windows, consoles such as the one started by the <code>cmd.exe</code>
295 program do input and output in an encoding, called &ldquo;OEM code page&rdquo;,
296 that is different from the encoding that text-mode programs usually use,
297 called &ldquo;ANSI code page&rdquo;. (Note: This problem does not exist for
298 Cygwin consoles; these consoles do input and output in the UTF-8
299 encoding.) As a workaround, you may request that the programs produce
300 output in this &ldquo;OEM&rdquo; encoding. To do so, set the environment variable
301 <code>OUTPUT_CHARSET</code> to the &ldquo;OEM&rdquo; encoding, through a command such as
302 </p><table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">set OUTPUT_CHARSET=CP850
303 </pre></td></tr></table>
304 <p>Note: This has an effect only on strings looked up in message catalogs;
305 other categories of text are usually not affected by this setting.
306 Note also that this environment variable also affects output sent to a
307 file or to a pipe; output to a file is most often expected to be in the
308 &ldquo;ANSI&rdquo; or in the UTF-8 encoding.
309 </p>
310 <p>Here are examples of the &ldquo;ANSI&rdquo; and &ldquo;OEM&rdquo; code pages:
311 </p>
312 <table>
313 <thead><tr><th><p> Territories &nbsp; </p></th><th><p> &nbsp; ANSI encoding &nbsp; </p></th><th><p> &nbsp; OEM encoding
314 </p></th></tr></thead>
315 <tr><td><p> Western Europe &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP1252 &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP850
316 </p></td></tr>
317 <tr><td><p> Slavic countries (Latin 2) &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP1250 &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP852
318 </p></td></tr>
319 <tr><td><p> Baltic countries &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP1257 &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP775
320 </p></td></tr>
321 <tr><td><p> Russia &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP1251 &nbsp; </p></td><td><p> &nbsp; CP866
322 </p></td></tr>
323 </table>
324
325
326 <a name="Installing-Localizations"></a>
327 <a name="SEC15"></a>
328 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC15">2.5 Installing Translations for Particular Programs</a> </h2>
329
330 <p>Languages are not equally well supported in all packages using GNU
331 <code>gettext</code>, and more translations are added over time. Usually, you
332 use the translations that are shipped with the operating system
333 or with particular packages that you install afterwards. But you can also
334 install newer localizations directly. For doing this, you will need an
335 understanding where each localization file is stored on the file system.
336 </p>
337 <a name="IDX42"></a>
338 <p>For programs that participate in the Translation Project, you can start
339 looking for translations here:
340 <a href="https://translationproject.org/team/index.html">https://translationproject.org/team/index.html</a>.
341 </p>
342 <p>For programs that are part of the KDE project, the starting point is:
343 <a href="https://l10n.kde.org/">https://l10n.kde.org/</a>.
344 </p>
345 <p>For programs that are part of the GNOME project, the starting point is:
346 <a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/TranslationProject">https://wiki.gnome.org/TranslationProject</a>.
347 </p>
348 <p>For other programs, you may check whether the program's source code package
349 contains some &lsquo;<tt><var>ll</var>.po</tt>&rsquo; files; often they are kept together in a
350 directory called &lsquo;<tt>po/</tt>&rsquo;. Each &lsquo;<tt><var>ll</var>.po</tt>&rsquo; file contains the
351 message translations for the language whose abbreviation of <var>ll</var>.
352 </p>
353
354 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
355 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC7" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
356 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_3.html#SEC16" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
357 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
358 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
359 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
360 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
361 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
362 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
363 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
364 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_21.html#SEC389" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
365 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
366 </tr></table>
367 <p>
368 <font size="-1">
369 This document was generated by <em>Bruno Haible</em> on <em>February, 21 2024</em> using <a href="https://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/"><em>texi2html 1.78a</em></a>.
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