bind_textdomain_codeset

First the the url of the gettext manual changed:http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/Secondly, lets explain a little bit what this fonction does.By default, gettext will use the LC_CTYPE of the language you choose (for example fr_FR).This LC_CTYPE is extracted from your locales.alias file in your configuration dir (Should be /etc/locales.alias).By default, the encoding is frequently iso-8859-1.So if you want to make your site utf-8 aware, you need to bind your domain with the right encoding.Here is a sample:<?php   $locale="fr_FR.UTF-8"   setlocale(LC_MESSAGES,  $locale);   $domain = 'your_text_domain';   bindtextdomain($domain, './translations_path');   textdomain($domain);   bind_textdomain_codeset($domain, 'UTF-8');?>As quoted in other notes, the translations path should be like/translations_path   /de_DE/       /LC_MESSAGES   /fr_FR/       /LC_MESSAGES   ...Your translation goes in the LC_MESSAGES dirs ... Hopes this helps :)

So, by using this function and by setting the LANGUAGE variable, you should be able to have a functioning i18n system that is not dependent upon a system's locale installation. Here is a sample from a method I created for a language class. Look for it on http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Developer soon:    function Init ()    {        // set the LANGUAGE environmental variable        // This one for some reason makes a difference FU@#$%^&*!CK        // and when combined with bind_textdomain_codeset allows one        // to set locale independent of server locale setup!!!        if ( false == putenv("LANGUAGE=" . $this->_language ) )            CCDebug::Log(sprintf("Could not set the ENV variable LANGUAGE = %s",                                 $this->_language));        // set the LANG environmental variable        if ( false == putenv("LANG=" . $this->_language ) )            CCDebug::Log(sprintf("Could not set the ENV variable LANG = %s",                                 $this->_language));        // if locales are not installed in locale folder, they will not        // get set! This is usually in /usr/lib/locale        // Also, the backup language should always be the default language        // because of this...see the NOTE in the class description        // Try first what we want but with the .utf8, which is what the locale        // setting on most systems want (and is most compatible        // Then just try the standard lang encoding asked for, and then if        // all else fails, just try the default language        // LC_ALL is said to be used, but it has nasty usage in some languages        // in swapping commas and periods! Thus try LC_MESSAGE if on one of        // those systems.        // It is supposedly not defined on WINDOWS, so am including it here        // for possible uncommenting if a problem is shown        //        // if (!defined('LC_MESSAGES')) define('LC_MESSAGES', 6);        // yes, setlocale is case-sensitive...arg        $locale_set = setlocale(LC_ALL, $this->_language . ".utf8",                                        $this->_language . ".UTF8",                                        $this->_language . ".utf-8",                                        $this->_language . ".UTF-8",                                        $this->_language,                                        CC_LANG);        // if we don't get the setting we want, make sure to complain!        if ( ( $locale_set != $this->_language && CC_LANG == $locale_set) ||             empty($locale_set) )        {            CCDebug::Log(                sprintf("Tried: setlocale to '%s', but could only set to '%s'.",                        $this->_language, $locale_set) );        }        $bindtextdomain_set = bindtextdomain($this->_domain,                                  CC_LANG_LOCALE . "/" . $this->_locale_pref );        if ( empty($bindtextdomain_set) )            CCDebug::Log(            sprintf("Tried: bindtextdomain, '%s', to directory, '%s', " .                    "but received '%s'",                    $this->_domain, CC_LANG_LOCALE . "/" . $this->_locale_pref,                    $bindtextdomain_set) );        bind_textdomain_codeset($this->_domain, "UTF-8");        $textdomain_set = textdomain($this->_domain);        if ( empty($textdomain_set) )            CCDebug::Log(sprintf("Tried: set textdomain to '%s', but got '%s'",                                 $this->_domain, $textdomain_set));    } // end of method Init ()

I had problems with German "umlauts" when using gettext. So, this is how it can be resolved:I've put these lines itom my PHP code:$domain = "messages";bindtextdomain($domain, "path_to_messages_dir");bind_textdomain_codeset($domain, 'ISO-8859-15');textdomain($domain);It works!