10.5 Using Message Catalogs

An important requirement for international software is that it should be able to communicate with the user in the user's own language. The messaging system enables program messages to be created separately from the program source, and linked to the program at run-time.

Messages are defined in a message text source file, and compiled into a message catalog using the GENCAT command. The message catalog is accessed by a program using the functions provided in the DEC C RTL.

The functions provided to access the messages in a catalog are:

• The catopen function, which opens a specified catalog ready for use.

• The catgets function, which enables the program to read a specific message from a catalog.

• The catclose function, which closes a specified catalog. Open message catalogs are also closed by the exit function.

For information on generating message catalogs, see the GENCAT command description in the OpenVMS system documentation.