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The format of a message text source file is defined as follows. Note that the fields of a message text source line are separated by a single ASCII space or tab character.
Any other ASCII spaces or tabs are considered as part of the subsequent field.
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$set n comment
- Where n specifies the set
identifier of the following messages until the next $set, $delset, or end-of-file appears. n must be a number in the range (1-{NL_SETMAX}). Set identifiers within a single source file need not be contiguous. Any string following the set identifier is treated as a comment. If no $set directive is specified
in a message text source file, all messages are located in the default message set NL_SETD.
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$delset n comment
- Deletes message set n from an existing message catalog. Any string following
the set number is treated as a comment. (Note: if n is not a valid set it is ignored.)
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$comment
- A line beginning with a dollar symbol $ followed by an ASCII space or tab character is treated as a comment.
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m message-text
- The m denotes the message identifier, a number in the range (1-{NL_MSGMAX}). The message-text is stored in the message catalog with the set identifier specified by the last $set directive,
and with message identifier m. If the message-text is empty, and an ASCII space or tab field separator is present,
an empty string is stored in the message catalog. If a message source line has a message number, but neither a field separator nor message-text, the existing message with that
number (if any) is deleted from the catalog. Message identifiers need not be contiguous. The length of message-text must be in the range (0-{NL_TEXTMAX}).
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$quote c
- This line specifies an optional quote character c, which can be used to surround message-text so that trailing spaces or null (empty) messages are visible in a message source line. By default, or if an empty $quote directive is supplied, no quoting
of message-text will be recognized.
Empty lines in a message text source file are ignored.
Text strings can contain the special characters and escape sequences defined in the following table:
| Description | Symbol | Sequence |
| newline | NL(LF) | \n |
| horizontal tab | HT | \t |
| vertical tab | VT | \v |
| backspace | BS | \b |
| carriage return | CR | \r |
| form feed | FF | \f |
| backslash | \ | \\ |
| bit pattern | ddd | \ddd |
The escape sequence \ddd consists of backslash followed by 1, 2 or 3 octal digits, which are taken to specify the value of the desired character.
If the character following a backslash is not one of those specified, the backslash is ignored.
Backslash followed by an ASCII newline character is also used to continue a string on the following line. Thus, the following two lines describe a single message string:
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1 This line continues \
to the next line
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which is equivalent to:
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1 This line continues to the next line
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