This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface

       Message catalogs produced by gencat  are  binary  encoded,  meaning  that  their  portability  cannot  be
       guaranteed  between  different  types of machine. Thus, just as C programs need to be recompiled for each
       type of machine, so message catalogs must be recreated via gencat.

       Default.

       Default.

       Thefollowingsectionsareinformative.

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard
       for Information  Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System  Interface  (POSIX),  The  Open  Group  Base
       Specifications  Issue  7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original
       IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee  document.
       The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced
       during  the  conversion  of  the  source  files  to  man  page  format.  To  report  such   errors,   see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group                                   2017                                        GENCAT(1POSIX)

       The  gencat  utility  shall  merge  the message text source file msgfile into a formatted message catalog
       catfile.  The file catfile shall be created if it does not already exist.  If  catfile  does  exist,  its
       messages  shall be included in the new catfile.  If set and message numbers collide, the new message text
       defined in msgfile shall replace the old message text currently contained in catfile.

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of gencat:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the
                 Base  Definitions  volume  of POSIX.1‐2017, Section8.2, InternationalizationVariables for the
                 precedence  of  internationalization  variables  used  to  determine  the  values   of   locale
                 categories.)

       LC_ALL    If  set  to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization
                 variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text  data  as  characters
                 (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine  the  locale  that  should  be  used  to affect the format and contents of diagnostic
                 messages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.

       None.

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

       The content of a message text file shall be in the format defined as follows. Note that the fields  of  a
       message  text  source  line are separated by a single <blank> character. Any other <blank> characters are
       considered to be part of the subsequent field.

       $setncomment
                 This line specifies the set identifier of the following messages until the next $set or end-of-
                 file appears. The n denotes the set identifier, which is defined as a number in the  range  [1,
                 {NL_SETMAX}]   (see   the   <limits.h>  header  defined  in  the  Base  Definitions  volume  of
                 POSIX.1‐2017). The application shall ensure that set identifiers  are  presented  in  ascending
                 order  within  a  single  source file, but need not be contiguous. Any string following the set
                 identifier shall be treated as a comment. If no $set directive is specified in a  message  text
                 source  file,  all  messages  shall be located in an implementation-defined default message set
                 NL_SETD (see the <nl_types.h> header defined in the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017).

       $delsetncomment
                 This line deletes message set n from an existing message catalog. The n denotes the set  number
                 [1, {NL_SETMAX}].  Any string following the set number shall be treated as a comment.

       $comment A line beginning with '$' followed by a <blank> shall be treated as a comment.

       mmessage-text
                 The  m  denotes  the  message  identifier,  which  is  defined  as  a  number  in the range [1,
                 {NL_MSGMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header). The message-text  shall  be  stored  in  the  message
                 catalog  with  the  set  identifier  specified  by  the  last  $set directive, and with message
                 identifier m.  If the message-text is empty, and a <blank> field separator is present, an empty
                 string shall be stored in the message catalog. If a message source line has a  message  number,
                 but  neither a field separator nor message-text, the existing message with that number (if any)
                 shall be deleted from the catalog. The application shall ensure that message identifiers are in
                 ascending order within a single set, but need not be contiguous. The application  shall  ensure
                 that the length of message-text is in the range [0, {NL_TEXTMAX}] (see the <limits.h> header).

       $quoten  This  line  specifies an optional quote character c, which can be used to surround message-text
                 so that trailing <space> characters or null (empty) messages are visible in  a  message  source
                 line. By default, or if an empty $quote directive is supplied, no quoting of message-text shall
                 be recognized.

       Empty  lines  in  a  message  text  source  file shall be ignored. The effects of lines starting with any
       character other than those defined above are implementation-defined.

       Text strings can contain the special characters and escape sequences defined in the following table:
                                      ┌───────────────────┬────────┬──────────┐
                                      │    Description    │ Symbol │ Sequence │
                                      ├───────────────────┼────────┼──────────┤
                                      │ <newline>         │ NL(LF) │ \n       │
                                      │ Horizontal-tab    │ HT     │ \t       │
                                      │ <vertical-tab>    │ VT     │ \v       │
                                      │ <backspace>       │ BS     │ \b       │
                                      │ <carriage-return> │ CR     │ \r       │
                                      │ <form-feed>       │ FF     │ \f       │
                                      │ Backslash         │ \      │ \\       │
                                      │ Bit pattern       │ ddd    │ \ddd     │
                                      └───────────────────┴────────┴──────────┘

       The escape sequence "\ddd" consists of <backslash> followed by one, two, or  three  octal  digits,  which
       shall be taken to specify the value of the desired character. If the character following a <backslash> is
       not one of those specified, the <backslash> shall be ignored.

       A  <backslash> followed by a <newline> is also used to continue a string on the following line. Thus, the
       following two lines describe a single message string:

           1 This line continues \
           to the next line

       which shall be equivalent to:

           1 This line continues to the next line

       None.

       The input files shall be text files.

       gencat — generate a formatted message catalog

       The following operands shall be supported:

       catfile   A pathname of the formatted message catalog. If '-' is  specified,  standard  output  shall  be
                 used. The format of the message catalog produced is unspecified.

       msgfile   A  pathname  of  a  message  text  source file. If '-' is specified for an instance of msgfile,
                 standard input shall be used. The format of  message  text  source  files  is  defined  in  the
                 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

       None.

       None.

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of this interface
       may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the  interface
       may not be implemented on Linux.

       None.

iconv

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter8, EnvironmentVariables, <limits.h>, <nl_types.h>

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

       The standard input shall not be used unless a msgfile operand is specified as '-'.

       The standard output shall not be used unless the catfile operand is specified as '-'.

       gencat catfilemsgfile...