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# 15. The Installer's and Distributor's View

By default, packages fully using GNU `gettext`, internally, are installed in such a way as to allow translation of messages. At configuration time, those packages should automatically detect whether the underlying host system already provides the GNU `gettext` functions. If not, the GNU `gettext` library should be automatically prepared and used. Installers may use special options at configuration time for changing this behavior. The command ‘`./configure --with-included-gettext`’ bypasses system `gettext` to use the included GNU `gettext` instead, while ‘`./configure --disable-nls`’ produces programs totally unable to translate messages.

Internationalized packages have usually many ‘`ll.po`’ or ‘`ll_CC.po`’ files, where

- ll gives an ISO 639 two-letter code identifying the language. For some languages, a two-letter code does not exist, and a three-letter code is used instead.
- The optional CC is an ISO 3166 two-letter code of a country or territory.

Unless translations are disabled, all those available are installed together with the package. However, the environment variable `LINGUAS` may be set, prior to configuration, to limit the installed set. `LINGUAS` should then contain a space separated list of locale names (of the form `ll` or `ll_CC`), stating which languages or language variants are allowed.

GNU `gettext` uses *.its and *.loc files (see section Preparing Rules for XML Internationalization) from other packages, provided they are installed in ‘`prefix/share/gettext/its/`’, where `prefix` is the value of the `--prefix` option passed to `gettext`'s `configure` script. So, this is the canonical location for installing *.its and *.loc files from other packages.

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This document was generated by Bruno Haible on January, 29 2026 using texi2html 1.78a.