# phpman > info > locale [LOCALE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/1/markdown) Linux User Manual [LOCALE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/1/markdown) NAME locale - get locale-specific information SYNOPSIS locale [option] locale [option] -a locale [option] -m locale [option] name... DESCRIPTION The locale command displays information about the current locale, or all locales, on standard output. When invoked without arguments, locale displays the current locale set- tings for each locale category (see [locale(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/5/markdown)), based on the settings of the environment variables that control the locale (see [locale(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/7/markdown)). Values for variables set in the environment are printed without double quotes, implied values are printed with double quotes. If either the -a or the -m option (or one of their long-format equiva- lents) is specified, the behavior is as follows: -a, --all-locales Display a list of all available locales. The -v option causes the LC_IDENTIFICATION metadata about each locale to be included in the output. -m, --charmaps Display the available charmaps (character set description files). To display the current character set for the locale, use locale -c charmap. The locale command can also be provided with one or more arguments, which are the names of locale keywords (for example, date_fmt, ctype- class-names, yesexpr, or decimal_point) or locale categories (for exam- ple, LC_CTYPE or LC_TIME). For each argument, the following is dis- played: * For a locale keyword, the value of that keyword to be displayed. * For a locale category, the values of all keywords in that category are displayed. When arguments are supplied, the following options are meaningful: -c, --category-name For a category name argument, write the name of the locale cate- gory on a separate line preceding the list of keyword values for that category. For a keyword name argument, write the name of the locale cate- gory for this keyword on a separate line preceding the keyword value. This option improves readability when multiple name arguments are specified. It can be combined with the -k option. -k, --keyword-name For each keyword whose value is being displayed, include also the name of that keyword, so that the output has the format: keyword="value" The locale command also knows about the following options: -v, --verbose Display additional information for some command-line option and argument combinations. -?, --help Display a summary of command-line options and arguments and exit. --usage Display a short usage message and exit. -V, --version Display the program version and exit. FILES /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive Usual default locale archive location. /usr/share/i18n/locales Usual default path for locale definition files. CONFORMING TO POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008. EXAMPLES $ locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8" LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8" LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8" LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8" LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8" LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8" LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8" LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8" LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8" LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8" LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8" LC_ALL= $ locale date_fmt %a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y $ locale -k date_fmt date_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y" $ locale -ck date_fmt LC_TIME date_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y" $ locale LC_TELEPHONE +%c (%a) %l (%a) %l 11 1 UTF-8 $ locale -k LC_TELEPHONE tel_int_fmt="+%c (%a) %l" tel_dom_fmt="(%a) %l" int_select="11" int_prefix="1" telephone-codeset="UTF-8" The following example compiles a custom locale from the ./wrk directory with the [localedef(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localedef/1/markdown) utility under the $HOME/.locale directory, then tests the result with the [date(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/date/1/markdown) command, and then sets the environ- ment variables LOCPATH and LANG in the shell profile file so that the custom locale will be used in the subsequent user sessions: $ mkdir -p $HOME/.locale $ I18NPATH=./wrk/ localedef -f UTF-8 -i fi_SE $HOME/.locale/fi_SE.UTF-8 $ LOCPATH=$HOME/.locale LC_ALL=fi_SE.UTF-8 date $ echo "export LOCPATH=\$HOME/.locale" >> $HOME/.bashrc $ echo "export LANG=fi_SE.UTF-8" >> $HOME/.bashrc SEE ALSO [localedef(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localedef/1/markdown), [charmap(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/charmap/5/markdown), [locale(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/5/markdown), [locale(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/7/markdown) COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at . Linux 2020-06-09 [LOCALE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/1/markdown) [locale(3perl)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/3perl/markdown) Perl Programmers Reference Guide [locale(3perl)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/3perl/markdown) NAME locale - Perl pragma to use or avoid POSIX locales for built-in operations WARNING DO NOT USE this pragma in scripts that have multiple threads active. The locale is not local to a single thread. Another thread may change the locale at any time, which could cause at a minimum that a given thread is operating in a locale it isn't expecting to be in. On some platforms, segfaults can also occur. The locale change need not be explicit; some operations cause perl to change the locale itself. You are vulnerable simply by having done a "use locale". SYNOPSIS @x = sort @y; # Native-platform/Unicode code point sort order { use locale; @x = sort @y; # Locale-defined sort order } @x = sort @y; # Native-platform/Unicode code point sort order # again DESCRIPTION This pragma tells the compiler to enable (or disable) the use of POSIX locales for built-in operations (for example, LC_CTYPE for regular expressions, LC_COLLATE for string comparison, and LC_NUMERIC for number formatting). Each "use locale" or "no locale" affects statements to the end of the enclosing BLOCK. See perllocale for more detailed information on how Perl supports locales. On systems that don't have locales, this pragma will cause your operations to behave as if in the "C" locale; attempts to change the locale will fail. perl v5.34.0 2025-07-25 [locale(3perl)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/3perl/markdown) [LOCALE(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/5/markdown) Linux User Manual [LOCALE(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/5/markdown) NAME locale - describes a locale definition file DESCRIPTION The locale definition file contains all the information that the lo- [caledef(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/caledef/1/markdown) command needs to convert it into the binary locale database. The definition files consist of sections which each describe a locale category in detail. See [locale(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/7/markdown) for additional details for these categories. Syntax The locale definition file starts with a header that may consist of the following keywords: escape_char is followed by a character that should be used as the escape- character for the rest of the file to mark characters that should be interpreted in a special way. It defaults to the backslash (\). comment_char is followed by a character that will be used as the comment- character for the rest of the file. It defaults to the number sign (#). The locale definition has one part for each locale category. Each part can be copied from another existing locale or can be defined from scratch. If the category should be copied, the only valid keyword in the definition is copy followed by the name of the locale in double quotes which should be copied. The exceptions for this rule are LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE where a copy statement can be followed by lo- cale-specific rules and selected overrides. When defining a locale or a category from scratch, an existing system- provided locale definition file should be used as a reference to follow common glibc conventions. Locale category sections The following category sections are defined by POSIX: * LC_CTYPE * LC_COLLATE * LC_MESSAGES * LC_MONETARY * LC_NUMERIC * LC_TIME In addition, since version 2.2, the GNU C library supports the follow- ing nonstandard categories: * LC_ADDRESS * LC_IDENTIFICATION * LC_MEASUREMENT * LC_NAME * LC_PAPER * LC_TELEPHONE See [locale(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/7/markdown) for a more detailed description of each category. LC_ADDRESS The definition starts with the string LC_ADDRESS in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: postal_fmt followed by a string containing field descriptors that define the format used for postal addresses in the locale. The follow- ing field descriptors are recognized: %n Person's name, possibly constructed with the LC_NAME name_fmt keyword (since glibc 2.24). %a Care of person, or organization. %f Firm name. %d Department name. %b Building name. %s Street or block (e.g., Japanese) name. %h House number or designation. %N Insert an end-of-line if the previous descriptor's value was not an empty string; otherwise ignore. %t Insert a space if the previous descriptor's value was not an empty string; otherwise ignore. %r Room number, door designation. %e Floor number. %C Country designation, from the country_post keyword. %l Local township within town or city (since glibc 2.24). %z Zip number, postal code. %T Town, city. %S State, province, or prefecture. %c Country, as taken from data record. Each field descriptor may have an 'R' after the '%' to specify that the information is taken from a Romanized version string of the entity. country_name followed by the country name in the language of the current doc- ument (e.g., "Deutschland" for the de_DE locale). country_post followed by the abbreviation of the country (see CERT_MAIL- CODES). country_ab2 followed by the two-letter abbreviation of the country (ISO 3166). country_ab3 followed by the three-letter abbreviation of the country (ISO 3166). country_num followed by the numeric country code (ISO 3166). country_car followed by the international license plate country code. country_isbn followed by the ISBN code (for books). lang_name followed by the language name in the language of the current document. lang_ab followed by the two-letter abbreviation of the language (ISO 639). lang_term followed by the three-letter abbreviation of the language (ISO 639-2/T). lang_lib followed by the three-letter abbreviation of the language for library use (ISO 639-2/B). Applications should in general pre- fer lang_term over lang_lib. The LC_ADDRESS definition ends with the string END LC_ADDRESS. LC_CTYPE The definition starts with the string LC_CTYPE in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: upper followed by a list of uppercase letters. The letters A through Z are included automatically. Characters also specified as cn- trl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed. lower followed by a list of lowercase letters. The letters a through z are included automatically. Characters also specified as cn- trl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed. alpha followed by a list of letters. All character specified as ei- ther upper or lower are automatically included. Characters also specified as cntrl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed. digit followed by the characters classified as numeric digits. Only the digits 0 through 9 are allowed. They are included by de- fault in this class. space followed by a list of characters defined as white-space charac- ters. Characters also specified as upper, lower, alpha, digit, graph, or xdigit are not allowed. The characters , , , , , and are automatically included. cntrl followed by a list of control characters. Characters also spec- ified as upper, lower, alpha, digit, punct, graph, print, or xdigit are not allowed. punct followed by a list of punctuation characters. Characters also specified as upper, lower, alpha, digit, cntrl, xdigit, or the character are not allowed. graph followed by a list of printable characters, not including the character. The characters defined as upper, lower, al- pha, digit, xdigit, and punct are automatically included. Char- acters also specified as cntrl are not allowed. print followed by a list of printable characters, including the character. The characters defined as upper, lower, al- pha, digit, xdigit, punct, and the character are auto- matically included. Characters also specified as cntrl are not allowed. xdigit followed by a list of characters classified as hexadecimal dig- its. The decimal digits must be included followed by one or more set of six characters in ascending order. The following characters are included by default: 0 through 9, a through f, A through F. blank followed by a list of characters classified as blank. The char- acters and are automatically included. charclass followed by a list of locale-specific character class names which are then to be defined in the locale. toupper followed by a list of mappings from lowercase to uppercase let- ters. Each mapping is a pair of a lowercase and an uppercase letter separated with a , and enclosed in parentheses. tolower followed by a list of mappings from uppercase to lowercase let- ters. If the keyword tolower is not present, the reverse of the toupper list is used. map totitle followed by a list of mapping pairs of characters and letters to be used in titles (headings). class followed by a locale-specific character class definition, start- ing with the class name followed by the characters belonging to the class. charconv followed by a list of locale-specific character mapping names which are then to be defined in the locale. outdigit followed by a list of alternate output digits for the locale. map to_inpunct followed by a list of mapping pairs of alternate digits and sep- arators for input digits for the locale. map to_outpunct followed by a list of mapping pairs of alternate separators for output for the locale. translit_start marks the start of the transliteration rules section. The sec- tion can contain the include keyword in the beginning followed by locale-specific rules and overrides. Any rule specified in the locale file will override any rule copied or included from other files. In case of duplicate rule definitions in the lo- cale file, only the first rule is used. A transliteration rule consist of a character to be transliter- ated followed by a list of transliteration targets separated by semicolons. The first target which can be presented in the tar- get character set is used, if none of them can be used the de- fault_missing character will be used instead. include in the transliteration rules section includes a transliteration rule file (and optionally a repertoire map file). default_missing in the transliteration rules section defines the default charac- ter to be used for transliteration where none of the targets cannot be presented in the target character set. translit_end marks the end of the transliteration rules. The LC_CTYPE definition ends with the string END LC_CTYPE. LC_COLLATE Note that glibc does not support all POSIX-defined options, only the options described below are supported (as of glibc 2.23). The definition starts with the string LC_COLLATE in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: coll_weight_max followed by the number representing used collation levels. This keyword is recognized but ignored by glibc. collating-element followed by the definition of a collating-element symbol repre- senting a multicharacter collating element. collating-symbol followed by the definition of a collating symbol that can be used in collation order statements. define followed by string to be evaluated in an ifdef string / else / endif construct. reorder-after followed by a redefinition of a collation rule. reorder-end marks the end of the redefinition of a collation rule. reorder-sections-after followed by a script name to reorder listed scripts after. reorder-sections-end marks the end of the reordering of sections. script followed by a declaration of a script. symbol-equivalence followed by a collating-symbol to be equivalent to another de- fined collating-symbol. The collation rule definition starts with a line: order_start followed by a list of keywords chosen from forward, backward, or position. The order definition consists of lines that describe the collation order and is terminated with the keyword or- der_end. The LC_COLLATE definition ends with the string END LC_COLLATE. LC_IDENTIFICATION The definition starts with the string LC_IDENTIFICATION in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: title followed by the title of the locale document (e.g., "Maori lan- guage locale for New Zealand"). source followed by the name of the organization that maintains this document. address followed by the address of the organization that maintains this document. contact followed by the name of the contact person at the organization that maintains this document. email followed by the email address of the person or organization that maintains this document. tel followed by the telephone number (in international format) of the organization that maintains this document. As of glibc 2.24, this keyword is deprecated in favor of other contact meth- ods. fax followed by the fax number (in international format) of the or- ganization that maintains this document. As of glibc 2.24, this keyword is deprecated in favor of other contact methods. language followed by the name of the language to which this document ap- plies. territory followed by the name of the country/geographic extent to which this document applies. audience followed by a description of the audience for which this docu- ment is intended. application followed by a description of any special application for which this document is intended. abbreviation followed by the short name for provider of the source of this document. revision followed by the revision number of this document. date followed by the revision date of this document. In addition, for each of the categories defined by the document, there should be a line starting with the keyword category, followed by: * a string that identifies this locale category definition, * a semicolon, and * one of the LC_* identifiers. The LC_IDENTIFICATION definition ends with the string END LC_IDENTIFI- CATION. LC_MESSAGES The definition starts with the string LC_MESSAGES in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: yesexpr followed by a regular expression that describes possible yes-re- sponses. noexpr followed by a regular expression that describes possible no-re- sponses. yesstr followed by the output string corresponding to "yes". nostr followed by the output string corresponding to "no". The LC_MESSAGES definition ends with the string END LC_MESSAGES. LC_MEASUREMENT The definition starts with the string LC_MEASUREMENT in the first col- umn. The following keywords are allowed: measurement followed by number identifying the standard used for measure- ment. The following values are recognized: 1 Metric. 2 US customary measurements. The LC_MEASUREMENT definition ends with the string END LC_MEASUREMENT. LC_MONETARY The definition starts with the string LC_MONETARY in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: int_curr_symbol followed by the international currency symbol. This must be a 4-character string containing the international currency symbol as defined by the ISO 4217 standard (three characters) followed by a separator. currency_symbol followed by the local currency symbol. mon_decimal_point followed by the single-character string that will be used as the decimal delimiter when formatting monetary quantities. mon_thousands_sep followed by the single-character string that will be used as a group separator when formatting monetary quantities. mon_grouping followed by a sequence of integers separated by semicolons that describe the formatting of monetary quantities. See grouping below for details. positive_sign followed by a string that is used to indicate a positive sign for monetary quantities. negative_sign followed by a string that is used to indicate a negative sign for monetary quantities. int_frac_digits followed by the number of fractional digits that should be used when formatting with the int_curr_symbol. frac_digits followed by the number of fractional digits that should be used when formatting with the currency_symbol. p_cs_precedes followed by an integer that indicates the placement of cur- rency_symbol for a nonnegative formatted monetary quantity: 0 the symbol succeeds the value. 1 the symbol precedes the value. p_sep_by_space followed by an integer that indicates the separation of cur- rency_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a nonnegative formatted monetary quantity. The following values are recog- nized: 0 No space separates the currency symbol and the value. 1 If the currency symbol and the sign string are adjacent, a space separates them from the value; otherwise a space sepa- rates the currency symbol and the value. 2 If the currency symbol and the sign string are adjacent, a space separates them from the value; otherwise a space sepa- rates the sign string and the value. n_cs_precedes followed by an integer that indicates the placement of cur- rency_symbol for a negative formatted monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_cs_precedes. n_sep_by_space followed by an integer that indicates the separation of cur- rency_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a negative for- matted monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_sep_by_space. p_sign_posn followed by an integer that indicates where the positive_sign should be placed for a nonnegative monetary quantity: 0 Parentheses enclose the quantity and the currency_symbol or int_curr_symbol. 1 The sign string precedes the quantity and the currency_sym- bol or the int_curr_symbol. 2 The sign string succeeds the quantity and the currency_sym- bol or the int_curr_symbol. 3 The sign string precedes the currency_symbol or the int_curr_symbol. 4 The sign string succeeds the currency_symbol or the int_curr_symbol. n_sign_posn followed by an integer that indicates where the negative_sign should be placed for a negative monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_sign_posn. int_p_cs_precedes followed by an integer that indicates the placement of int_curr_symbol for a nonnegative internationally formatted mon- etary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_cs_pre- cedes. int_n_cs_precedes followed by an integer that indicates the placement of int_curr_symbol for a negative internationally formatted mone- tary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_cs_pre- cedes. int_p_sep_by_space followed by an integer that indicates the separation of int_curr_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a nonnega- tive internationally formatted monetary quantity. The same val- ues are recognized as for p_sep_by_space. int_n_sep_by_space followed by an integer that indicates the separation of int_curr_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a negative internationally formatted monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_sep_by_space. int_p_sign_posn followed by an integer that indicates where the positive_sign should be placed for a nonnegative internationally formatted monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_sign_posn. int_n_sign_posn followed by an integer that indicates where the negative_sign should be placed for a negative internationally formatted mone- tary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_sign_posn. The LC_MONETARY definition ends with the string END LC_MONETARY. LC_NAME The definition starts with the string LC_NAME in the first column. Various keywords are allowed, but only name_fmt is mandatory. Other keywords are needed only if there is common convention to use the cor- responding salutation in this locale. The allowed keywords are as fol- lows: name_fmt followed by a string containing field descriptors that define the format used for names in the locale. The following field descriptors are recognized: %f Family name(s). %F Family names in uppercase. %g First given name. %G First given initial. %l First given name with Latin letters. %o Other shorter name. %m Additional given name(s). %M Initials for additional given name(s). %p Profession. %s Salutation, such as "Doctor". %S Abbreviated salutation, such as "Mr." or "Dr.". %d Salutation, using the FDCC-sets conventions. %t If the preceding field descriptor resulted in an empty string, then the empty string, otherwise a space character. name_gen followed by the general salutation for any gender. name_mr followed by the salutation for men. name_mrs followed by the salutation for married women. name_miss followed by the salutation for unmarried women. name_ms followed by the salutation valid for all women. The LC_NAME definition ends with the string END LC_NAME. LC_NUMERIC The definition starts with the string LC_NUMERIC in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: decimal_point followed by the single-character string that will be used as the decimal delimiter when formatting numeric quantities. thousands_sep followed by the single-character string that will be used as a group separator when formatting numeric quantities. grouping followed by a sequence of integers separated by semicolons that describe the formatting of numeric quantities. Each integer specifies the number of digits in a group. The first integer defines the size of the group immediately to the left of the decimal delimiter. Subsequent integers define suc- ceeding groups to the left of the previous group. If the last integer is not -1, then the size of the previous group (if any) is repeatedly used for the remainder of the digits. If the last integer is -1, then no further grouping is performed. The LC_NUMERIC definition ends with the string END LC_NUMERIC. LC_PAPER The definition starts with the string LC_PAPER in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: height followed by the height, in millimeters, of the standard paper format. width followed by the width, in millimeters, of the standard paper format. The LC_PAPER definition ends with the string END LC_PAPER. LC_TELEPHONE The definition starts with the string LC_TELEPHONE in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: tel_int_fmt followed by a string that contains field descriptors that iden- tify the format used to dial international numbers. The follow- ing field descriptors are recognized: %a Area code without nationwide prefix (the prefix is often "00"). %A Area code including nationwide prefix. %l Local number (within area code). %e Extension (to local number). %c Country code. %C Alternate carrier service code used for dialing abroad. %t If the preceding field descriptor resulted in an empty string, then the empty string, otherwise a space character. tel_dom_fmt followed by a string that contains field descriptors that iden- tify the format used to dial domestic numbers. The recognized field descriptors are the same as for tel_int_fmt. int_select followed by the prefix used to call international phone numbers. int_prefix followed by the prefix used from other countries to dial this country. The LC_TELEPHONE definition ends with the string END LC_TELEPHONE. LC_TIME The definition starts with the string LC_TIME in the first column. The following keywords are allowed: abday followed by a list of abbreviated names of the days of the week. The list starts with the first day of the week as specified by week (Sunday by default). See NOTES. day followed by a list of names of the days of the week. The list starts with the first day of the week as specified by week (Sun- day by default). See NOTES. abmon followed by a list of abbreviated month names. mon followed by a list of month names. d_t_fmt followed by the appropriate date and time format (for syntax, see [strftime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown)). d_fmt followed by the appropriate date format (for syntax, see strf- [time(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/time/3/markdown)). t_fmt followed by the appropriate time format (for syntax, see strf- [time(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/time/3/markdown)). am_pm followed by the appropriate representation of the am and pm strings. This should be left empty for locales not using AM/PM convention. t_fmt_ampm followed by the appropriate time format (for syntax, see strf- [time(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/time/3/markdown)) when using 12h clock format. This should be left empty for locales not using AM/PM convention. era followed by semicolon-separated strings that define how years are counted and displayed for each era in the locale. Each string has the following format: direction:offset:start_date:end_date:era_name:era_format The fields are to be defined as follows: direction Either + or -. + means the years closer to start_date have lower numbers than years closer to end_date. - means the opposite. offset The number of the year closest to start_date in the era, corresponding to the %Ey descriptor (see [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown)). start_date The start of the era in the form of yyyy/mm/dd. Years prior AD 1 are represented as negative numbers. end_date The end of the era in the form of yyyy/mm/dd, or one of the two special values of -* or +*. -* means the ending date is the beginning of time. +* means the ending date is the end of time. era_name The name of the era corresponding to the %EC descriptor (see [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown)). era_format The format of the year in the era corresponding to the %EY descriptor (see [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown)). era_d_fmt followed by the format of the date in alternative era notation, corresponding to the %Ex descriptor (see [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown)). era_t_fmt followed by the format of the time in alternative era notation, corresponding to the %EX descriptor (see [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown)). era_d_t_fmt followed by the format of the date and time in alternative era notation, corresponding to the %Ec descriptor (see [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown)). alt_digits followed by the alternative digits used for date and time in the locale. week followed by a list of three values separated by semicolons: The number of days in a week (by default 7), a date of beginning of the week (by default corresponds to Sunday), and the minimal length of the first week in year (by default 4). Regarding the start of the week, 19971130 shall be used for Sunday and 19971201 shall be used for Monday. See NOTES. first_weekday (since glibc 2.2) followed by the number of the day from the day list to be shown as the first day of the week in calendar applications. The de- fault value of 1 corresponds to either Sunday or Monday depend- ing on the value of the second week list item. See NOTES. first_workday (since glibc 2.2) followed by the number of the first working day from the day list. The default value is 2. See NOTES. cal_direction followed by a number value that indicates the direction for the display of calendar dates, as follows: 1 Left-right from top. 2 Top-down from left. 3 Right-left from top. date_fmt followed by the appropriate date representation for [date(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/date/1/markdown) (for syntax, see [strftime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown)). The LC_TIME definition ends with the string END LC_TIME. FILES /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive Usual default locale archive location. /usr/share/i18n/locales Usual default path for locale definition files. CONFORMING TO POSIX.2. NOTES The collective GNU C library community wisdom regarding abday, day, week, first_weekday, and first_workday states at - ware.org/glibc/wiki/Locales the following: * The value of the second week list item specifies the base of the ab- day and day lists. * first_weekday specifies the offset of the first day-of-week in the abday and day lists. * For compatibility reasons, all glibc locales should set the value of the second week list item to 19971130 (Sunday) and base the abday and day lists appropriately, and set first_weekday and first_workday to 1 or 2, depending on whether the week and work week actually starts on Sunday or Monday for the locale. SEE ALSO [iconv(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/iconv/1/markdown), [locale(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/1/markdown), [localedef(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localedef/1/markdown), [localeconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localeconv/3/markdown), [newlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/newlocale/3/markdown), setlo- [cale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/cale/3/markdown), [strftime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown), [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown), [uselocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/uselocale/3/markdown), [charmap(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/charmap/5/markdown), [charsets(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/charsets/7/markdown), [locale(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/7/markdown), [unicode(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/unicode/7/markdown), [utf-8(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/utf-8/7/markdown) COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at . Linux 2020-11-01 [LOCALE(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/5/markdown) [LOCALE(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/7/markdown) Linux Programmer's Manual [LOCALE(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/7/markdown) NAME locale - description of multilanguage support SYNOPSIS #include DESCRIPTION A locale is a set of language and cultural rules. These cover aspects such as language for messages, different character sets, lexicographic conventions, and so on. A program needs to be able to determine its locale and act accordingly to be portable to different cultures. The header declares data types, functions and macros which are useful in this task. The functions it declares are [setlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/setlocale/3/markdown) to set the current locale, and [localeconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localeconv/3/markdown) to get information about number formatting. There are different categories for locale information a program might need; they are declared as macros. Using them as the first argument to the [setlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/setlocale/3/markdown) function, it is possible to set one of these to the desired locale: LC_ADDRESS (GNU extension, since glibc 2.2) Change settings that describe the formats (e.g., postal ad- dresses) used to describe locations and geography-related items. Applications that need this information can use [nl_langinfo(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nllanginfo/3/markdown) to retrieve nonstandard elements, such as _NL_ADDRESS_COUN- TRY_NAME (country name, in the language of the locale) and _NL_ADDRESS_LANG_NAME (language name, in the language of the lo- cale), which return strings such as "Deutschland" and "Deutsch" (for German-language locales). (Other element names are listed in .) LC_COLLATE This category governs the collation rules used for sorting and regular expressions, including character equivalence classes and multicharacter collating elements. This locale category changes the behavior of the functions [strcoll(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strcoll/3/markdown) and [strxfrm(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strxfrm/3/markdown), which are used to compare strings in the local alphabet. For example, the German sharp s is sorted as "ss". LC_CTYPE This category determines the interpretation of byte sequences as characters (e.g., single versus multibyte characters), character classifications (e.g., alphabetic or digit), and the behavior of character classes. On glibc systems, this category also deter- mines the character transliteration rules for [iconv(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/iconv/1/markdown) and [iconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/iconv/3/markdown). It changes the behavior of the character handling and classification functions, such as [isupper(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/isupper/3/markdown) and [toupper(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/toupper/3/markdown), and the multibyte character functions such as [mblen(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mblen/3/markdown) or [wctomb(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/wctomb/3/markdown). LC_IDENTIFICATION (GNU extension, since glibc 2.2) Change settings that relate to the metadata for the locale. Ap- plications that need this information can use [nl_langinfo(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nllanginfo/3/markdown) to retrieve nonstandard elements, such as _NL_IDENTIFICATION_TITLE (title of this locale document) and _NL_IDENTIFICATION_TERRITORY (geographical territory to which this locale document applies), which might return strings such as "English locale for the USA" and "USA". (Other element names are listed in .) LC_MONETARY This category determines the formatting used for monetary-re- lated numeric values. This changes the information returned by [localeconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localeconv/3/markdown), which describes the way numbers are usually printed, with details such as decimal point versus decimal comma. This information is internally used by the function [strfmon(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strfmon/3/markdown). LC_MESSAGES This category affects the language in which messages are dis- played and what an affirmative or negative answer looks like. The GNU C library contains the [gettext(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gettext/3/markdown), [ngettext(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ngettext/3/markdown), and rp- [match(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/match/3/markdown) functions to ease the use of this information. The GNU gettext family of functions also obey the environment variable LANGUAGE (containing a colon-separated list of locales) if the category is set to a valid locale other than "C". This category also affects the behavior of [catopen(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/catopen/3/markdown). LC_MEASUREMENT (GNU extension, since glibc 2.2) Change the settings relating to the measurement system in the locale (i.e., metric versus US customary units). Applications can use [nl_langinfo(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nllanginfo/3/markdown) to retrieve the nonstandard _NL_MEASURE- MENT_MEASUREMENT element, which returns a pointer to a character that has the value 1 (metric) or 2 (US customary units). LC_NAME (GNU extension, since glibc 2.2) Change settings that describe the formats used to address per- sons. Applications that need this information can use nl_lang- [info(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/info/3/markdown) to retrieve nonstandard elements, such as _NL_NAME_NAME_MR (general salutation for men) and _NL_NAME_NAME_MS (general salutation for women) elements, which return strings such as "Herr" and "Frau" (for German-language locales). (Other element names are listed in .) LC_NUMERIC This category determines the formatting rules used for nonmone- tary numeric values--for example, the thousands separator and the radix character (a period in most English-speaking coun- tries, but a comma in many other regions). It affects functions such as [printf(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/printf/3/markdown), [scanf(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/scanf/3/markdown), and [strtod(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strtod/3/markdown). This information can also be read with the [localeconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localeconv/3/markdown) function. LC_PAPER (GNU extension, since glibc 2.2) Change the settings relating to the dimensions of the standard paper size (e.g., US letter versus A4). Applications that need the dimensions can obtain them by using [nl_langinfo(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nllanginfo/3/markdown) to re- trieve the nonstandard _NL_PAPER_WIDTH and _NL_PAPER_HEIGHT ele- ments, which return int values specifying the dimensions in mil- limeters. LC_TELEPHONE (GNU extension, since glibc 2.2) Change settings that describe the formats to be used with tele- phone services. Applications that need this information can use [nl_langinfo(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nllanginfo/3/markdown) to retrieve nonstandard elements, such as _NL_TELEPHONE_INT_PREFIX (international prefix used to call num- bers in this locale), which returns a string such as "49" (for Germany). (Other element names are listed in .) LC_TIME This category governs the formatting used for date and time val- ues. For example, most of Europe uses a 24-hour clock versus the 12-hour clock used in the United States. The setting of this category affects the behavior of functions such as strf- [time(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/time/3/markdown) and [strptime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strptime/3/markdown). LC_ALL All of the above. If the second argument to [setlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/setlocale/3/markdown) is an empty string, "", for the default locale, it is determined using the following steps: 1. If there is a non-null environment variable LC_ALL, the value of LC_ALL is used. 2. If an environment variable with the same name as one of the cate- gories above exists and is non-null, its value is used for that cat- egory. 3. If there is a non-null environment variable LANG, the value of LANG is used. Values about local numeric formatting is made available in a struct lconv returned by the [localeconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localeconv/3/markdown) function, which has the following declaration: struct lconv { /* Numeric (nonmonetary) information */ char *decimal_point; /* Radix character */ char *thousands_sep; /* Separator for digit groups to left of radix character */ char *grouping; /* Each element is the number of digits in a group; elements with higher indices are further left. An element with value CHAR_MAX means that no further grouping is done. An element with value 0 means that the previous element is used for all groups further left. */ /* Remaining fields are for monetary information */ char *int_curr_symbol; /* First three chars are a currency symbol from ISO 4217. Fourth char is the separator. Fifth char is '\0'. */ char *currency_symbol; /* Local currency symbol */ char *mon_decimal_point; /* Radix character */ char *mon_thousands_sep; /* Like thousands_sep above */ char *mon_grouping; /* Like grouping above */ char *positive_sign; /* Sign for positive values */ char *negative_sign; /* Sign for negative values */ char int_frac_digits; /* International fractional digits */ char frac_digits; /* Local fractional digits */ char p_cs_precedes; /* 1 if currency_symbol precedes a positive value, 0 if succeeds */ char p_sep_by_space; /* 1 if a space separates currency_symbol from a positive value */ char n_cs_precedes; /* 1 if currency_symbol precedes a negative value, 0 if succeeds */ char n_sep_by_space; /* 1 if a space separates currency_symbol from a negative value */ /* Positive and negative sign positions: 0 Parentheses surround the quantity and currency_symbol. 1 The sign string precedes the quantity and currency_symbol. 2 The sign string succeeds the quantity and currency_symbol. 3 The sign string immediately precedes the currency_symbol. 4 The sign string immediately succeeds the currency_symbol. */ char p_sign_posn; char n_sign_posn; }; POSIX.1-2008 extensions to the locale API POSIX.1-2008 standardized a number of extensions to the locale API, based on implementations that first appeared in version 2.3 of the GNU C library. These extensions are designed to address the problem that the traditional locale APIs do not mix well with multithreaded applica- tions and with applications that must deal with multiple locales. The extensions take the form of new functions for creating and manipu- lating locale objects ([newlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/newlocale/3/markdown), [freelocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/freelocale/3/markdown), [duplocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/duplocale/3/markdown), and [uselocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/uselocale/3/markdown)) and various new library functions with the suffix "_l" (e.g., [toupper_l(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/toupperl/3/markdown)) that extend the traditional locale-dependent APIs (e.g., [toupper(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/toupper/3/markdown)) to allow the specification of a locale object that should apply when executing the function. ENVIRONMENT The following environment variable is used by [newlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/newlocale/3/markdown) and setlo- [cale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/cale/3/markdown), and thus affects all unprivileged localized programs: LOCPATH A list of pathnames, separated by colons (':'), that should be used to find locale data. If this variable is set, only the in- dividual compiled locale data files from LOCPATH and the system default locale data path are used; any available locale archives are not used (see [localedef(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localedef/1/markdown)). The individual compiled locale data files are searched for under subdirectories which depend on the currently used locale. For example, when en_GB.UTF-8 is used for a category, the following subdirectories are searched for, in this order: en_GB.UTF-8, en_GB.utf8, en_GB, en.UTF-8, en.utf8, and en. FILES /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive Usual default locale archive location. /usr/lib/locale Usual default path for compiled individual locale files. CONFORMING TO POSIX.1-2001. SEE ALSO [iconv(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/iconv/1/markdown), [locale(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/1/markdown), [localedef(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localedef/1/markdown), [catopen(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/catopen/3/markdown), [gettext(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gettext/3/markdown), [iconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/iconv/3/markdown), [localeconv(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/localeconv/3/markdown), [mbstowcs(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mbstowcs/3/markdown), [newlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/newlocale/3/markdown), [ngettext(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ngettext/3/markdown), [nl_langinfo(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nllanginfo/3/markdown), [rpmatch(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/rpmatch/3/markdown), [setlocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/setlocale/3/markdown), [strcoll(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strcoll/3/markdown), [strfmon(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strfmon/3/markdown), [strftime(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/markdown), [strxfrm(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strxfrm/3/markdown), [uselocale(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/uselocale/3/markdown), [wcstombs(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/wcstombs/3/markdown), [locale(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locale/5/markdown), [charsets(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/charsets/7/markdown), uni- [code(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/code/7/markdown), [utf-8(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/utf-8/7/markdown) COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at . Linux 2019-03-06 [LOCALE(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/LOCALE/7/markdown)