Options and arguments:

-c, --context=CONTEXT

specify context for FORMAT

FORMAT

English singular form of format string

FORMAT-PLURAL

English plural form of format string

COUNT

choose singular/plural form based on this value

ARGUMENT

string or numeric argument

Informative output:

-h, --help

display this help and exit

-V, --version

display version information and exit

Each format string consists of

- plain text, - directives, that start with '%', - escape sequences, that start with a backslash.

A directive that consumes an argument

- starts with '%' or '%m$' where m is a positive integer, - is optionally followed by any of the characters '#', '0', '-', ' ', '+',

each of which acts as a flag,

- is optionally followed by a width specification (a nonnegative integer), - is optionally followed by '.' and a precision specification (an optional

nonnegative integer),

- is finished by a specifier

- 'c', that prints a character, - 's', that prints a string, - 'i', 'd', that print an integer, - 'u', 'o', 'x', 'X', that print an unsigned (nonnegative) integer, - 'e', 'E', that print a floating-point number in scientific notation, - 'f', 'F', that print a floating-point number without an exponent, - 'g', 'G', that print a floating-point number in general notation, - 'a', 'A', that print a floating-point number in hexadecimal notation.

Additionally there is the directive '%%', that prints a single '%'.

If a directive specifies the argument by its number ('%m$' notation), all directives that consume an argument must do so.

The escape sequences are:

\\

backslash

\a

alert (BEL)

\b

backspace (BS)

\f

form feed (FF)

\n

new line (LF)

\r

carriage return (CR)

\t

horizontal tab (HT)

\v

vertical tab (VT)

\nnn

octal number with 1 to 3 octal digits

Environment variables:

The translation of the format string is looked up in the translation domain given by the environment variable TEXTDOMAIN. It is looked up in the catalogs directory given by the environment variable TEXTDOMAINDIR or, if not present, in the default catalogs directory. This binary is configured to use the default catalogs directory: /usr/share/locale