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 <hr>
 </div>

 <h5 class="subsubsection">8.2.1.3 Additional functions for more complicated situations</h5>

 <p>The functions of the <code>gettext</code> family described so far (and all the
 <code>catgets</code> functions as well) have one problem in the real world
 which have been neglected completely in all existing approaches.  What
 is meant here is the handling of plural forms.

    <p>Looking through Unix source code before the time anybody thought about
 internationalization (and, sadly, even afterwards) one can often find
 code similar to the following:

 <pre class="smallexample">        printf ("%d file%s deleted", n, n == 1 ? "" : "s");
 </pre>
    <p class="noindent">After the first complaints from people internationalizing the code people
 either completely avoided formulations like this or used strings like
 <code>"file(s)"</code>.  Both look unnatural and should be avoided.  First
 tries to solve the problem correctly looked like this:

 <pre class="smallexample">        if (n == 1)
           printf ("%d file deleted", n);
         else
           printf ("%d files deleted", n);
 </pre>
    <p>But this does not solve the problem.  It helps languages where the
 plural form of a noun is not simply constructed by adding an `s' but
 that is all.  Once again people fell into the trap of believing the
 rules their language is using are universal.  But the handling of plural
 forms differs widely between the language families.  There are two
 things we can differ between (and even inside language families);

      <ul>
 <li>The form how plural forms are build differs.  This is a problem with
 language which have many irregularities.  German, for instance, is a
 drastic case.  Though English and German are part of the same language
 family (Germanic), the almost regular forming of plural noun forms
 (appending an `s') is hardly found in German.

      <li>The number of plural forms differ.  This is somewhat surprising for
 those who only have experiences with Romanic and Germanic languages
 since here the number is the same (there are two).

      <p>But other language families have only one form or many forms.  More
 information on this in an extra section.
 </ul>

    <p>The consequence of this is that application writers should not try to
 solve the problem in their code.  This would be localization since it is
 only usable for certain, hardcoded language environments.  Instead the
 extended <code>gettext</code> interface should be used.

    <p>These extra functions are taking instead of the one key string two
 strings and an numerical argument.  The idea behind this is that using
 the numerical argument and the first string as a key, the implementation
 can select using rules specified by the translator the right plural
 form.  The two string arguments then will be used to provide a return
 value in case no message catalog is found (similar to the normal
 <code>gettext</code> behavior).  In this case the rules for Germanic language
 is used and it is assumed that the first string argument is the singular
 form, the second the plural form.

    <p>This has the consequence that programs without language catalogs can
 display the correct strings only if the program itself is written using
 a Germanic language.  This is a limitation but since the GNU C library
 (as well as the GNU <code>gettext</code> package) are written as part of the
 GNU package and the coding standards for the GNU project require program
 being written in English, this solution nevertheless fulfills its
 purpose.

 <!-- libintl.h -->
 <!-- GNU -->
 <div class="defun">
 &mdash; Function: char * <b>ngettext</b> (<var>const char *msgid1, const char *msgid2, unsigned long int n</var>)<var><a name="index-ngettext-813"></a></var><br>
 <blockquote><p>The <code>ngettext</code> function is similar to the <code>gettext</code> function
 as it finds the message catalogs in the same way.  But it takes two
 extra arguments.  The <var>msgid1</var> parameter must contain the singular
 form of the string to be converted.  It is also used as the key for the
 search in the catalog.  The <var>msgid2</var> parameter is the plural form.
 The parameter <var>n</var> is used to determine the plural form.  If no
 message catalog is found <var>msgid1</var> is returned if <code>n == 1</code>,
 otherwise <code>msgid2</code>.

         <p>An example for the us of this function is:

      <pre class="smallexample">            printf (ngettext ("%d file removed", "%d files removed", n), n);
 </pre>
         <p>Please note that the numeric value <var>n</var> has to be passed to the
 <code>printf</code> function as well.  It is not sufficient to pass it only to
 <code>ngettext</code>.
 </p></blockquote></div>

 <!-- libintl.h -->
 <!-- GNU -->
 <div class="defun">
 &mdash; Function: char * <b>dngettext</b> (<var>const char *domain, const char *msgid1, const char *msgid2, unsigned long int n</var>)<var><a name="index-dngettext-814"></a></var><br>
 <blockquote><p>The <code>dngettext</code> is similar to the <code>dgettext</code> function in the
 way the message catalog is selected.  The difference is that it takes
 two extra parameter to provide the correct plural form.  These two
 parameters are handled in the same way <code>ngettext</code> handles them.
 </p></blockquote></div>

 <!-- libintl.h -->
 <!-- GNU -->
 <div class="defun">
 &mdash; Function: char * <b>dcngettext</b> (<var>const char *domain, const char *msgid1, const char *msgid2, unsigned long int n, int category</var>)<var><a name="index-dcngettext-815"></a></var><br>
 <blockquote><p>The <code>dcngettext</code> is similar to the <code>dcgettext</code> function in the
 way the message catalog is selected.  The difference is that it takes
 two extra parameter to provide the correct plural form.  These two
 parameters are handled in the same way <code>ngettext</code> handles them.
 </p></blockquote></div>

 <h5 class="subsubheading">The problem of plural forms</h5>

 <p>A description of the problem can be found at the beginning of the last
 section.  Now there is the question how to solve it.  Without the input
 of linguists (which was not available) it was not possible to determine
 whether there are only a few different forms in which plural forms are
 formed or whether the number can increase with every new supported
 language.

    <p>Therefore the solution implemented is to allow the translator to specify
 the rules of how to select the plural form.  Since the formula varies
 with every language this is the only viable solution except for
 hardcoding the information in the code (which still would require the
 possibility of extensions to not prevent the use of new languages).  The
 details are explained in the GNU <code>gettext</code> manual.  Here only a
 bit of information is provided.

    <p>The information about the plural form selection has to be stored in the
 header entry (the one with the empty (<code>msgid</code> string).  It looks
 like this:

 <pre class="smallexample">     Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n == 1 ? 0 : 1;
 </pre>
    <p>The <code>nplurals</code> value must be a decimal number which specifies how
 many different plural forms exist for this language.  The string
 following <code>plural</code> is an expression which is using the C language
 syntax.  Exceptions are that no negative number are allowed, numbers
 must be decimal, and the only variable allowed is <code>n</code>.  This
 expression will be evaluated whenever one of the functions
 <code>ngettext</code>, <code>dngettext</code>, or <code>dcngettext</code> is called.  The
 numeric value passed to these functions is then substituted for all uses
 of the variable <code>n</code> in the expression.  The resulting value then
 must be greater or equal to zero and smaller than the value given as the
 value of <code>nplurals</code>.

 <p class="noindent">The following rules are known at this point.  The language with families
 are listed.  But this does not necessarily mean the information can be
 generalized for the whole family (as can be easily seen in the table
 below).<a rel="footnote" href="#fn-1" name="fnd-1"><sup>1</sup></a>

      <dl>
 <dt>Only one form:<dd>Some languages only require one single form.  There is no distinction
 between the singular and plural form.  An appropriate header entry
 would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=1; plural=0;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Finno-Ugric family<dd>Hungarian
 <br><dt>Asian family<dd>Japanese, Korean
 <br><dt>Turkic/Altaic family<dd>Turkish
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Two forms, singular used for one only<dd>This is the form used in most existing programs since it is what English
 is using.  A header entry would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n != 1;
 </pre>
      <p>(Note: this uses the feature of C expressions that boolean expressions
 have to value zero or one.)

      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Germanic family<dd>Danish, Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish
 <br><dt>Finno-Ugric family<dd>Estonian, Finnish
 <br><dt>Latin/Greek family<dd>Greek
 <br><dt>Semitic family<dd>Hebrew
 <br><dt>Romance family<dd>Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
 <br><dt>Artificial<dd>Esperanto
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Two forms, singular used for zero and one<dd>Exceptional case in the language family.  The header entry would be:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n&gt;1;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Romanic family<dd>French, Brazilian Portuguese
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Three forms, special case for zero<dd>The header entry would be:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n%10==1 &amp;&amp; n%100!=11 ? 0 : n != 0 ? 1 : 2;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Baltic family<dd>Latvian
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Three forms, special cases for one and two<dd>The header entry would be:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n==1 ? 0 : n==2 ? 1 : 2;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Celtic<dd>Gaeilge (Irish)
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Three forms, special case for numbers ending in 1[2-9]<dd>The header entry would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
               plural=n%10==1 &amp;&amp; n%100!=11 ? 0 : \
                      n%10&gt;=2 &amp;&amp; (n%100&lt;10 || n%100&gt;=20) ? 1 : 2;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Baltic family<dd>Lithuanian
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Three forms, special cases for numbers ending in 1 and 2, 3, 4, except those ending in 1[1-4]<dd>The header entry would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
               plural=n%100/10==1 ? 2 : n%10==1 ? 0 : (n+9)%10&gt;3 ? 2 : 1;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Slavic family<dd>Croatian, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Three forms, special cases for 1 and 2, 3, 4<dd>The header entry would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
               plural=(n==1) ? 1 : (n&gt;=2 &amp;&amp; n&lt;=4) ? 2 : 0;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Slavic family<dd>Slovak
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Three forms, special case for one and some numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4<dd>The header entry would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
               plural=n==1 ? 0 : \
                      n%10&gt;=2 &amp;&amp; n%10&lt;=4 &amp;&amp; (n%100&lt;10 || n%100&gt;=20) ? 1 : 2;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Slavic family<dd>Polish
 </dl>

      <br><dt>Four forms, special case for one and all numbers ending in 02, 03, or 04<dd>The header entry would look like this:

      <pre class="smallexample">          Plural-Forms: nplurals=4; \
               plural=n%100==1 ? 0 : n%100==2 ? 1 : n%100==3 || n%100==4 ? 2 : 3;
 </pre>
      <p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

           <dl>
 <dt>Slavic family<dd>Slovenian
 </dl>
      </dl>

    <div class="footnote">
 <hr>
 <h4>Footnotes</h4><p class="footnote"><small>[<a name="fn-1" href="#fnd-1">1</a>]</small> Additions are welcome.  Send appropriate information to
 <a href="mailto:bug-glibc-manual@gnu.org">bug-glibc-manual@gnu.org</a>.</p>

    <hr></div>

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	<hr>
	</div>

	<h5 class="subsubsection">8.2.1.3 Additional functions for more complicated situations</h5>

	<p>The functions of the <code>gettext</code> family described so far (and all the
	<code>catgets</code> functions as well) have one problem in the real world
	which have been neglected completely in all existing approaches. What
	is meant here is the handling of plural forms.

	<p>Looking through Unix source code before the time anybody thought about
	internationalization (and, sadly, even afterwards) one can often find
	code similar to the following:

	<pre class="smallexample"> printf ("%d file%s deleted", n, n == 1 ? "" : "s");
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">After the first complaints from people internationalizing the code people
	either completely avoided formulations like this or used strings like
	<code>"file(s)"</code>. Both look unnatural and should be avoided. First
	tries to solve the problem correctly looked like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> if (n == 1)
	printf ("%d file deleted", n);
	else
	printf ("%d files deleted", n);
	</pre>
	<p>But this does not solve the problem. It helps languages where the
	plural form of a noun is not simply constructed by adding an `s' but
	that is all. Once again people fell into the trap of believing the
	rules their language is using are universal. But the handling of plural
	forms differs widely between the language families. There are two
	things we can differ between (and even inside language families);

	<ul>
	<li>The form how plural forms are build differs. This is a problem with
	language which have many irregularities. German, for instance, is a
	drastic case. Though English and German are part of the same language
	family (Germanic), the almost regular forming of plural noun forms
	(appending an `s') is hardly found in German.

	<li>The number of plural forms differ. This is somewhat surprising for
	those who only have experiences with Romanic and Germanic languages
	since here the number is the same (there are two).

	<p>But other language families have only one form or many forms. More
	information on this in an extra section.
	</ul>

	<p>The consequence of this is that application writers should not try to
	solve the problem in their code. This would be localization since it is
	only usable for certain, hardcoded language environments. Instead the
	extended <code>gettext</code> interface should be used.

	<p>These extra functions are taking instead of the one key string two
	strings and an numerical argument. The idea behind this is that using
	the numerical argument and the first string as a key, the implementation
	can select using rules specified by the translator the right plural
	form. The two string arguments then will be used to provide a return
	value in case no message catalog is found (similar to the normal
	<code>gettext</code> behavior). In this case the rules for Germanic language
	is used and it is assumed that the first string argument is the singular
	form, the second the plural form.

	<p>This has the consequence that programs without language catalogs can
	display the correct strings only if the program itself is written using
	a Germanic language. This is a limitation but since the GNU C library
	(as well as the GNU <code>gettext</code> package) are written as part of the
	GNU package and the coding standards for the GNU project require program
	being written in English, this solution nevertheless fulfills its
	purpose.

	<!-- libintl.h -->
	<!-- GNU -->
	<div class="defun">
	— Function: char * <b>ngettext</b> (<var>const char msgid1, const char msgid2, unsigned long int n</var>)<var><a name="index-ngettext-813"></a></var><br>
	<blockquote><p>The <code>ngettext</code> function is similar to the <code>gettext</code> function
	as it finds the message catalogs in the same way. But it takes two
	extra arguments. The <var>msgid1</var> parameter must contain the singular
	form of the string to be converted. It is also used as the key for the
	search in the catalog. The <var>msgid2</var> parameter is the plural form.
	The parameter <var>n</var> is used to determine the plural form. If no
	message catalog is found <var>msgid1</var> is returned if <code>n == 1</code>,
	otherwise <code>msgid2</code>.

	<p>An example for the us of this function is:

	<pre class="smallexample"> printf (ngettext ("%d file removed", "%d files removed", n), n);
	</pre>
	<p>Please note that the numeric value <var>n</var> has to be passed to the
	<code>printf</code> function as well. It is not sufficient to pass it only to
	<code>ngettext</code>.
	</p></blockquote></div>

	<!-- libintl.h -->
	<!-- GNU -->
	<div class="defun">
	— Function: char * <b>dngettext</b> (<var>const char domain, const char msgid1, const char *msgid2, unsigned long int n</var>)<var><a name="index-dngettext-814"></a></var><br>
	<blockquote><p>The <code>dngettext</code> is similar to the <code>dgettext</code> function in the
	way the message catalog is selected. The difference is that it takes
	two extra parameter to provide the correct plural form. These two
	parameters are handled in the same way <code>ngettext</code> handles them.
	</p></blockquote></div>

	<!-- libintl.h -->
	<!-- GNU -->
	<div class="defun">
	— Function: char * <b>dcngettext</b> (<var>const char domain, const char msgid1, const char *msgid2, unsigned long int n, int category</var>)<var><a name="index-dcngettext-815"></a></var><br>
	<blockquote><p>The <code>dcngettext</code> is similar to the <code>dcgettext</code> function in the
	way the message catalog is selected. The difference is that it takes
	two extra parameter to provide the correct plural form. These two
	parameters are handled in the same way <code>ngettext</code> handles them.
	</p></blockquote></div>

	<h5 class="subsubheading">The problem of plural forms</h5>

	<p>A description of the problem can be found at the beginning of the last
	section. Now there is the question how to solve it. Without the input
	of linguists (which was not available) it was not possible to determine
	whether there are only a few different forms in which plural forms are
	formed or whether the number can increase with every new supported
	language.

	<p>Therefore the solution implemented is to allow the translator to specify
	the rules of how to select the plural form. Since the formula varies
	with every language this is the only viable solution except for
	hardcoding the information in the code (which still would require the
	possibility of extensions to not prevent the use of new languages). The
	details are explained in the GNU <code>gettext</code> manual. Here only a
	bit of information is provided.

	<p>The information about the plural form selection has to be stored in the
	header entry (the one with the empty (<code>msgid</code> string). It looks
	like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n == 1 ? 0 : 1;
	</pre>
	<p>The <code>nplurals</code> value must be a decimal number which specifies how
	many different plural forms exist for this language. The string
	following <code>plural</code> is an expression which is using the C language
	syntax. Exceptions are that no negative number are allowed, numbers
	must be decimal, and the only variable allowed is <code>n</code>. This
	expression will be evaluated whenever one of the functions
	<code>ngettext</code>, <code>dngettext</code>, or <code>dcngettext</code> is called. The
	numeric value passed to these functions is then substituted for all uses
	of the variable <code>n</code> in the expression. The resulting value then
	must be greater or equal to zero and smaller than the value given as the
	value of <code>nplurals</code>.

	<p class="noindent">The following rules are known at this point. The language with families
	are listed. But this does not necessarily mean the information can be
	generalized for the whole family (as can be easily seen in the table
	below).<a rel="footnote" href="#fn-1" name="fnd-1"><sup>1</sup></a>

	<dl>
	<dt>Only one form:<dd>Some languages only require one single form. There is no distinction
	between the singular and plural form. An appropriate header entry
	would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=1; plural=0;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Finno-Ugric family<dd>Hungarian
	<br><dt>Asian family<dd>Japanese, Korean
	<br><dt>Turkic/Altaic family<dd>Turkish
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Two forms, singular used for one only<dd>This is the form used in most existing programs since it is what English
	is using. A header entry would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n != 1;
	</pre>
	<p>(Note: this uses the feature of C expressions that boolean expressions
	have to value zero or one.)

	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Germanic family<dd>Danish, Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish
	<br><dt>Finno-Ugric family<dd>Estonian, Finnish
	<br><dt>Latin/Greek family<dd>Greek
	<br><dt>Semitic family<dd>Hebrew
	<br><dt>Romance family<dd>Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
	<br><dt>Artificial<dd>Esperanto
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Two forms, singular used for zero and one<dd>Exceptional case in the language family. The header entry would be:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=n>1;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Romanic family<dd>French, Brazilian Portuguese
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Three forms, special case for zero<dd>The header entry would be:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n%10==1 && n%100!=11 ? 0 : n != 0 ? 1 : 2;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Baltic family<dd>Latvian
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Three forms, special cases for one and two<dd>The header entry would be:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n==1 ? 0 : n==2 ? 1 : 2;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Celtic<dd>Gaeilge (Irish)
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Three forms, special case for numbers ending in 1[2-9]<dd>The header entry would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
	plural=n%10==1 && n%100!=11 ? 0 : \
	n%10>=2 && (n%100<10 \|\| n%100>=20) ? 1 : 2;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Baltic family<dd>Lithuanian
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Three forms, special cases for numbers ending in 1 and 2, 3, 4, except those ending in 1[1-4]<dd>The header entry would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
	plural=n%100/10==1 ? 2 : n%10==1 ? 0 : (n+9)%10>3 ? 2 : 1;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Slavic family<dd>Croatian, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Three forms, special cases for 1 and 2, 3, 4<dd>The header entry would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
	plural=(n==1) ? 1 : (n>=2 && n<=4) ? 2 : 0;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Slavic family<dd>Slovak
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Three forms, special case for one and some numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4<dd>The header entry would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; \
	plural=n==1 ? 0 : \
	n%10>=2 && n%10<=4 && (n%100<10 \|\| n%100>=20) ? 1 : 2;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Slavic family<dd>Polish
	</dl>

	<br><dt>Four forms, special case for one and all numbers ending in 02, 03, or 04<dd>The header entry would look like this:

	<pre class="smallexample"> Plural-Forms: nplurals=4; \
	plural=n%100==1 ? 0 : n%100==2 ? 1 : n%100==3 \|\| n%100==4 ? 2 : 3;
	</pre>
	<p class="noindent">Languages with this property include:

	<dl>
	<dt>Slavic family<dd>Slovenian
	</dl>
	</dl>

	<div class="footnote">
	<hr>
	<h4>Footnotes</h4><p class="footnote"><small>[<a name="fn-1" href="#fnd-1">1</a>]</small> Additions are welcome. Send appropriate information to
	<a href="mailto:bug-glibc-manual@gnu.org">bug-glibc-manual@gnu.org</a>.</p>

	<hr></div>

	</body></html>