Re: HAVE_LC_MESSAGES

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Sam Steingold wrote:
> What's the point of HAVE_LC_MESSAGES?

The point is to tell whether LC_MESSAGES is supported by the system, or is a
fake one defined by libintl or gnulib.

See doc/posix-headers/locale.texi:

  Portability problems fixed by Gnulib:
  @itemize
  @item
  The definition of @samp{LC_MESSAGES} is missing on some platforms:
  mingw.
  ...

Note that gnulib also overrides setlocale(), so that the "fake" LC_MESSAGES
locale category actually becomes functional.

> However, how is
> 
>  #if HAVE_LC_MESSAGES
>   setlocale(LC_MESSAGES,"");
>  #endif
> 
> better than
> 
>  #ifdef LC_MESSAGES
>   setlocale(LC_MESSAGES,"");
>  #endif
> 
> ??

This #if or #ifdef is outdated. The gettext manual [1] explains why.

Bruno

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Triggering.html
-- 
In memoriam Kurt Huber <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Huber>