Sun Microsystems tried to standardize a different approach to message translation in the Uniforum group. There never was a real standard defined but still the interface was used in Sun’s operating systems. Since this approach fits better in the development process of free software it is also used throughout the GNU project and the GNU gettext package provides support for this outside the GNU C Library.
The code of the libintl from GNU gettext is the same as the code in the GNU C Library. So the documentation in the GNU gettext manual is also valid for the functionality here. The following text will describe the library functions in detail. But the numerous helper programs are not described in this manual. Instead people should read the GNU gettext manual (see GNU gettext utilities in Native Language Support Library and Tools). We will only give a short overview.
Though the catgets functions are available by default on more
systems the gettext interface is at least as portable as the
former. The GNU gettext package can be used wherever the
functions are not available.