---
name: "gencat"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "libc-dev-bin"
version: "2.41-12+deb13u4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/gencat"
---

# gencat(1)

Generate message catalog

## NAME

gencat - Generate message catalog

## SYNOPSIS

gencat \[OPTION ...\] -o OUTPUT-FILE \[INPUT-FILE ...\]

## DESCRIPTION

The **gencat** program is specified in the X/Open standard and the GNU implementation follows this specification and so processes all correctly formed input files. Additionally some extension are implemented which help to work in a more reasonable way with the [**catgets**(3)](/catgets/3.md) functions.

- **-H**, **--header** *NAME*

  Create C header file NAME containing symbol definitions

- **--new**

  Do not use existing catalog, force new output file

- **-o**, **--output** *NAME*

  Write output to file NAME

## AUTHOR

*gencat* was written by Ulrich Drepper as part of the GNU C Library.

This man page was written by Jeff Bailey \<jbailey@debian.org\>.