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LOCALE(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual LOCALE(1P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (con-
sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on
Linux.
NAME
locale - get locale-specific information
SYNOPSIS
locale [-a| -m]
locale [-ck] name...
DESCRIPTION
The locale utility shall write information about the current locale environment, or all public locales, to the standard
output. For the purposes of this section, a public locale is one provided by the implementation that is accessible to the
application.
When locale is invoked without any arguments, it shall summarize the current locale environment for each locale category
as determined by the settings of the environment variables defined in the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 7, Locale.
When invoked with operands, it shall write values that have been assigned to the keywords in the locale categories, as
follows:
* Specifying a keyword name shall select the named keyword and the category containing that keyword.
* Specifying a category name shall select the named category and all keywords in that category.
OPTIONS
The locale utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax
Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
-a Write information about all available public locales. The available locales shall include POSIX, representing the
POSIX locale. The manner in which the implementation determines what other locales are available is implementa-
tion-defined.
-c Write the names of selected locale categories; see the STDOUT section. The -c option increases readability when
more than one category is selected (for example, via more than one keyword name or via a category name). It is
valid both with and without the -k option.
-k Write the names and values of selected keywords. The implementation may omit values for some keywords; see the OP-
ERANDS section.
-m Write names of available charmaps; see the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 6.1, Portable
Character Set.
OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
name The name of a locale category as defined in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 7,
Locale, the name of a keyword in a locale category, or the reserved name charmap. The named category or keyword
shall be selected for output. If a single name represents both a locale category name and a keyword name in the
current locale, the results are unspecified. Otherwise, both category and keyword names can be specified as name
operands, in any sequence. It is implementation-defined whether any keyword values are written for the categories
LC_CTYPE and LC_COLLATE.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of locale:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of international-
ization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE
Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-
byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to stan-
dard error.
NLSPATH
Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .
The application shall ensure that the LANG, LC_*, and NLSPATH environment variables specify the current locale environ-
ment to be written out; they shall be used if the -a option is not specified.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
If locale is invoked without any options or operands, the names and values of the LANG and LC_* environment variables
described in this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 shall be written to the standard output, one variable per line, with
LANG first, and each line using the following format. Only those variables set in the environment and not overridden by
LC_ALL shall be written using this format:
"%s=%s\n", <variable_name>, <value>
The names of those LC_* variables associated with locale categories defined in this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 that
are not set in the environment or are overridden by LC_ALL shall be written in the following format:
"%s=\"%s\"\n", <variable_name>, <implied value>
The <implied value> shall be the name of the locale that has been selected for that category by the implementation, based
on the values in LANG and LC_ALL, as described in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 8, Envi-
ronment Variables.
The <value> and <implied value> shown above shall be properly quoted for possible later reentry to the shell. The <value>
shall not be quoted using double-quotes (so that it can be distinguished by the user from the <implied value> case, which
always requires double-quotes).
The LC_ALL variable shall be written last, using the first format shown above. If it is not set, it shall be written as:
"LC_ALL=\n"
If any arguments are specified:
1. If the -a option is specified, the names of all the public locales shall be written, each in the following format:
"%s\n", <locale name>
2. If the -c option is specified, the names of all selected categories shall be written, each in the following format:
"%s\n", <category name>
If keywords are also selected for writing (see following items), the category name output shall precede the keyword out-
put for that category.
If the -c option is not specified, the names of the categories shall not be written; only the keywords, as selected by
the <name> operand, shall be written.
3. If the -k option is specified, the names and values of selected keywords shall be written. If a value is non-numeric,
it shall be written in the following format:
"%s=\"%s\"\n", <keyword name>, <keyword value>
If the keyword was charmap, the name of the charmap (if any) that was specified via the localedef -f option when the
locale was created shall be written, with the word charmap as <keyword name>.
If a value is numeric, it shall be written in one of the following formats:
"%s=%d\n", <keyword name>, <keyword value>
"%s=%c%o\n", <keyword name>, <escape character>, <keyword value>
"%s=%cx%x\n", <keyword name>, <escape character>, <keyword value>
where the <escape character> is that identified by the escape_char keyword in the current locale; see the Base Defini-
tions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 7.3, Locale Definition.
Compound keyword values (list entries) shall be separated in the output by semicolons. When included in keyword values,
the semicolon, the double-quote, the backslash, and any control character shall be preceded (escaped) with the escape
character.
4. If the -k option is not specified, selected keyword values shall be written, each in the following format:
"%s\n", <keyword value>
If the keyword was charmap, the name of the charmap (if any) that was specified via the localedef -f option when the
locale was created shall be written.
5. If the -m option is specified, then a list of all available charmaps shall be written, each in the format:
"%s\n", <charmap>
where <charmap> is in a format suitable for use as the option-argument to the localedef -f option.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 All the requested information was found and output successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
If the LANG environment variable is not set or set to an empty value, or one of the LC_* environment variables is set to
an unrecognized value, the actual locales assumed (if any) are implementation-defined as described in the Base Defini-
tions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 8, Environment Variables.
Implementations are not required to write out the actual values for keywords in the categories LC_CTYPE and LC_COLLATE ;
however, they must write out the categories (allowing an application to determine, for example, which character classes
are available).
EXAMPLES
In the following examples, the assumption is that locale environment variables are set as follows:
LANG=locale_x
LC_COLLATE=locale_y
The command locale would result in the following output:
LANG=locale_x
LC_CTYPE="locale_x"
LC_COLLATE=locale_y
LC_TIME="locale_x"
LC_NUMERIC="locale_x"
LC_MONETARY="locale_x"
LC_MESSAGES="locale_x"
LC_ALL=
The order of presentation of the categories is not specified by this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.
The command:
LC_ALL=POSIX locale -ck decimal_point
would produce:
LC_NUMERIC
decimal_point="."
The following command shows an application of locale to determine whether a user-supplied response is affirmative:
if printf "%s\n" "$response" | grep -Eq "$(locale yesexpr)"
then
affirmative processing goes here
else
non-affirmative processing goes here
fi
RATIONALE
The output for categories LC_CTYPE and LC_COLLATE has been made implementation-defined because there is a questionable
value in having a shell script receive an entire array of characters. It is also difficult to return a logical collation
description, short of returning a complete localedef source.
The -m option was included to allow applications to query for the existence of charmaps. The output is a list of the
charmaps (implementation-supplied and user-supplied, if any) on the system.
The -c option was included for readability when more than one category is selected (for example, via more than one key-
word name or via a category name). It is valid both with and without the -k option.
The charmap keyword, which returns the name of the charmap (if any) that was used when the current locale was created,
was included to allow applications needing the information to retrieve it.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
localedef, the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 7.3, Locale Definition
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for
Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copy-
right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.open-
group.org/unix/online.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2003 LOCALE(1P)
