What does printf (_(“hello, world\n”)) mean? [duplicate]

Answer 1

See GNU Gettext -- it (_(...)) is used as a "binding site" for translation.

Answer 2

The underscore function (or macro) is a custom function defined by whatever project you're looking at. By convention, it's defined to send the string to GNU Gettext to fetch a translated version of the string for the user's current language.

This use of the _ macro is documented in the overview found in the GNU Gettext manual.

Answer 3

This is the gettext internationalization system.

Answer 4

it is a macro that replaces the gettext translation function. For a thorough explanation on gettext, check out this write-up: http://oriya.sarovar.org/docs/gettext_single.html