Deliver Message Catalog

Every SVR4 UNIX platform contains the gencat utility. Run gencat on the translated message catalog file to produce a binary form of the message catalog. The resulting file is a formatted message database.

CDE and gencat

Each platform has its own implementation of gencat. Follow these rules for message catalogs to ensure that each message catalog's format does not cause different gencat utilities to break:

1. Use a $quote directive if you have trailing spaces (see the gencat man page).

2. Do not put more than one space between the message id and the message string.

3. Insert a space between $ and the comments.

4. Message IDs need to be sorted in ascending order.

.msg Files

A .msg file is a message catalog containing translatable text that appears in your application code. It is the file that you give to a translator for translation. See the gencat man page for its format. Use gencat to turn a translated message catalog to a message database.

.cat Files

A .cat file is a message catalog that results when you run gencat on a .msg file. This is a binary file.