Shell Scripting: Expert Recipes for Linux, Bash, and More

Chapter 21

Internationalization

Internationalization is often seen as something that can be done only by complex features of over-engineered programming environments. This is really not the case, and it is easy to produce internationalized shell scripts, as shown by this recipe. Dealing programmatically with human language is always tricky, and dealing with many different languages at once is even more complicated. The two key things are to keep shell syntax separate from the message strings, and to be aware of every instance of pluralization. An English script could get away with “I can see 1 aircraft” and “I can see 2 aircraft,” but in another language the word “aircraft” would have a different plural form.