Question

Is there a standard or common way in C++ to handle static strings that need to be set by gettext()?

Here is an example using the answer to Complete C++ i18n gettext() “hello world” example as a base just changing the literal hello world to a static char* hws and char* hw.
It looks like hws is getting initialized to the default English text before the locale is set from the
local operating system environment. While hw is getting set after the locale is changed thus producing the Spanish text.

cat >hellostaticgt.cxx <<EOF
// hellostaticgt.cxx
#include <libintl.h>
#include <locale.h>
#include <iostream>
char* hws = gettext("hello, world static!");
int main (){
    setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
    bindtextdomain("hellostaticgt", ".");
    textdomain( "hellostaticgt");
    char* hw = gettext("hello, world!");
    std::cout << hws << std::endl;
    std::cout << hw << std::endl;
}
EOF
g++ -o hellostaticgt hellostaticgt.cxx
xgettext --package-name hellostaticgt --package-version 1.0 --default-domain hellostaticgt --output hellostaticgt.pot hellostaticgt.cxx
msginit --no-translator --locale es_MX --output-file hellostaticgt_spanish.po --input hellostaticgt.pot
sed --in-place hellostaticgt_spanish.po --expression='/#: /,$ s/""/"hola mundo"/'
mkdir --parents ./es_MX.utf8/LC_MESSAGES
msgfmt --check --verbose --output-file ./es_MX.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/hellostaticgt.mo hellostaticgt_spanish.po
LANGUAGE=es_MX.utf8 ./hellostaticgt

Answer 1

You need to split gettext usage into two parts. First, you just mark the string with a macro, such as gettext_noop, so that xgettext will extract it. Then, when you refer to the the global variable, you wrap the access with the true gettext call.

See Special Cases in the gettext manual.

N.B. Your variable hws is not a static variable (no “static keyword”); it is a global variable.