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31 .\" @(#)setlocale.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
39 .Nd natural language formatting for C
45 .Fn setlocale "int category" "const char *locale"
49 function sets the C library's notion
50 of natural language formatting style
51 for particular sets of routines.
52 Each such style is called a
54 and is invoked using an appropriate name passed as a C string.
58 function recognizes several categories of routines.
59 These are the categories and the sets of routines they select:
60 .Bl -tag -width LC_MONETARY
62 Set the entire locale generically.
64 Set a locale for string collation routines.
65 This controls alphabetic ordering in
75 This controls recognition of upper and lower case,
76 alphabetic or non-alphabetic characters,
79 Set a locale for message catalogs, see
83 Set a locale for formatting monetary values;
88 Set a locale for formatting numbers.
89 This controls the formatting of decimal points
90 in input and output of floating point numbers
95 as well as values returned by
98 Set a locale for formatting dates and times using the
102 Sets the generic locale category for native language, local customs
103 and coded character set in the absence of more specific locale
107 Only three locales are defined by default,
110 which denotes the native environment, and the
114 locales, which denote the C language environment.
121 to return the current locale.
127 command can be used to display all further possible names for the
129 argument that are recognized.
130 Specifying any unrecognized value for
136 By default, C programs start in the
140 The only function in the library that sets the locale is
142 the locale is never changed as a side effect of some other routine.
144 Upon successful completion,
146 returns the string associated with the specified
154 and fails to change the locale
155 if the given combination of
161 The following code illustrates how a program can initialize the
162 international environment for one language, while selectively
163 modifying the program's locale such that regular expressions and
164 string operations can be applied to text recorded in a different
167 setlocale(LC_ALL, "de");
168 setlocale(LC_COLLATE, "fr");
171 When a process is started, its current locale is set to the C or POSIX
173 An internationalized program that depends on locale data not defined in
174 the C or POSIX locale must invoke the setlocale subroutine in the
175 following manner before using any of the locale-specific information:
177 setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
180 .Bl -tag -width /usr/share/locale/locale/category -compact
181 .It Pa $PATH_LOCALE/ Ns Em locale/category
182 .It Pa /usr/share/locale/ Ns Em locale/category
183 locale file for the locale
189 No errors are defined.
210 function first appeared in