4glWorks reference: language support routines

National language support is given in the form of text files which map tokens to phrases. Message files are organized in the source code tree in a directory per each language, and are formatted using a simple token, blanks or tabs, text scheme. Comments are marked by a pound (#) sign.
For the time being there is no provision for multiple line messages.

txt_fetch

file ctxtl.4gl
declaration 
function txt_fetch(fname, code)
    define fname	char(14),
	   code		char(8)
returns description, char(80), retrieved text
purpose retrieves a line of text from a file
example none
notes
  • Should any error occur while loading the file, an error is written to the log, and depending on the error trapping routine behaviour, a message given to the user. Subsequent accesses to the same file trigger no action.
  • Text identifiers not found in the file cause the routine to return the value of code, followed by a question mark.

txt_retrieve

file ctxtl.4gl
declaration 
function txt_retrieve(code)
    define code		char(14)
returns description, char(80), retrieved text
purpose txt_retrieve serves a similar purpose to txt_fetch, but gathers the output text from different places depending on the format of code:
  • an integer will return a standard Informix error message
  • a string of the form token1.token2 will retrieve message token2 from file token1
  • any other string will retrieve the corresponding text from the default message file, named <application>.txt.
example none
notes see txt_fetch

txt_validate

file ctxtl.4gl
declaration 
function txt_validate(fname, codes)
    define fname	char(14),
	   codes	char(80)
returns true or false
purpose Determines whether file fname defines all the texts specified in codes
example none
notes

Please address questions or comments to marco greco
(last updated Thu, 28 March 2002 16:09:32 GMT)