dspmsg Command

Purpose

Displays a selected message from a message catalog.

Syntax

dspmsg [ -s SetNumber ] CatalogName MessageNumber [ 'DefaultMessage' [ Arguments ] ]

Description

The dspmsg command displays either the text of a particular message from a message catalog generated with the gencat command or, if the message cannot be retrieved, a default message supplied as a parameter to the command. The dspmsg command directs the message to standard output. This command is intended for use in shell scripts as a replacement for the echo command.

Note: The dspmsg command looks for the catalog files under the NLSPATH if the LC_FASTMSG is set to False in C or POSIX locale environment.

LC__FASTMSG specifies that default messages are used for the C and POSIX locales and that NLSPATH is ignored when LC__FASTMSG is set to True.

The default value for LC__FASTMSG will be True in /etc/environment.

The NLSPATH environment variable and the LC_MESSAGES category are used to find the specified message catalog if no / (slash) characters are used in the value of the CatalogName parameter. If the catalog named by the CatalogName parameter is not found or if the message named by the MessageNumber parameter (and optional SetNumber value) is not found, then the supplied DefaultMessage value is displayed. If a DefaultMessage value is not specified, a system-generated error message is displayed.

The dspmsg command allows up to ten string arguments to be substituted into the message if it contains the %s, %n$s, %ld, or %n$ld printf subroutine conversion specification. Missing arguments for conversion specifications result in a dspmsg error message. Normal printf subroutine control character escapes (for example, \n) are recognized.

The use of printf subroutine format strings is recommended in the catalog. This format provides for correct insertion of arguments even if the format strings in the message are in a different order than the default message. You must enclose the default message in single quotation marks if using the %n$s notation for message inserts.

Flags

Item	Description
-s SetNumber	Specifies an optional set number. The default value for the SetNumber variable is 1.

Examples

To display set number 1, message number 2 of the test.cat catalog, enter:

dspmsg    -s    1    test.cat    2    'message    %s    not    found'    2

If the message is not found, message 2 not found is displayed.

Files

Item	Description
/usr/bin/dspmsg	Contains the dspmsg command.