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(gettext.info)Optimized gettext

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Optimization of the *gettext functions
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   At this point of the discussion we should talk about an advantage of
the GNU `gettext' implementation.  Some readers might have pointed out
that an internationalized program might have a poor performance if some
string has to be translated in an inner loop.  While this is unavoidable
when the string varies from one run of the loop to the other it is
simply a waste of time when the string is always the same.  Take the
following example:

     {
       while (...)
         {
           puts (gettext ("Hello world"));
         }
     }

When the locale selection does not change between two runs the resulting
string is always the same.  One way to use this is:

     {
       str = gettext ("Hello world");
       while (...)
         {
           puts (str);
         }
     }

But this solution is not usable in all situation (e.g. when the locale
selection changes) nor does it lead to legible code.

   For this reason, GNU `gettext' caches previous translation results.
When the same translation is requested twice, with no new message
catalogs being loaded in between, `gettext' will, the second time, find
the result through a single cache lookup.