[ale] help a decrepit c programmer

[warlord at MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)]

Tim Watts <tim at cliftonfarm.org> writes:

> What does this C expression do:
>
> 	_("Authors")
>
> I can't find any macro or function definition for it. I haven't done any
> serious c coding since the heydays of OS/2 (did it ever have a heyday?).
> My guess is it's some kind of unicode operator? A little help from the
> pros, s'il vous plait...

It's a localization shortcut used with GetText.  It does two things:
1) It marks the string "Authors" as a translatable string, and
2) It immediately called 'gettext()' on the string in-place so the
   result is the translated version.

There are other macros you can use.  For example, you can use:

  N_("Translate me");

This will mark the string as translatable but still use the untranlated
version immediately.

Then later you can do:

  const char* foo = "Translate me";
  printf("%s\n", _(foo));

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available