setlocale(3C) LIBRARY FUNCTIONS setlocale(3C)
NAME
setlocale - modify and query a program's locale
SYNOPSIS
#include <locale.h>
char *setlocale (int category, const char *locale);
DESCRIPTION
setlocale selects the appropriate piece of the program's
locale as specified by the category and locale arguments.
The category argument may have the following values:
LCCTYPE, LCNUMERIC, LCTIME, LCCOLLATE, LCMONETARY,
LCMESSAGES and LCALL. These names are defined in the
locale.h header file. LCCTYPE affects the behavior of the
character handling functions (isdigit, tolower, etc.) and
the multibyte character functions (such as mbtowc and
wctomb). LCNUMERIC affects the decimal-point character for
the formatted input/output functions and the string conver-
sion functions as well as the non-mandatory formatting
information returned by localeconv. [See localeconv(3C).].
LCTIME affects the behavior of ascftime, cftime, getdate
and strftime. LCCOLLATE affects the behavior of strcoll
and strxfrm. LCMONETARY affects the monetary formatted
information returned by localeconv. LCMESSAGES affects the
behavior of gettxt, catopen, catclose, and catgets. [See
catopen(3C) and catgets(3C).] LCALL names the program's
entire locale.
Each category corresponds to a set of databases which con-
tain the relevant information for each defined locale. The
location of a database is given by the following path,
/usr/lib/locale/locale/category, where locale and category
are the names of locale and category, respectively. For
example, the database for the LCCTYPE category for the
"german" locale would be found in
/usr/lib/locale/german/LCCTYPE.
A value of "C" for locale specifies the default environment.
A value of "" for locale specifies that the locale should be
taken from environment variables. The order in which the
environment variables are checked for the various categories
is given below:
Category 1st Env. Var. 2nd Env. Var
___________________________________________
LCCTYPE: LCCTYPE LANG
LCCOLLATE: LCCOLLATE LANG
LCTIME: LCTIME LANG
LCNUMERIC: LCNUMERIC LANG
LCMONETARY: LCMONETARY LANG
LCMESSAGES: LCMESSAGES LANG
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setlocale(3C) LIBRARY FUNCTIONS setlocale(3C)
At program startup, the equivalent of
setlocale(LCALL, "C")
is executed. This has the effect of initializing each
category to the locale described by the environment "C".
If a pointer to a string is given for locale, setlocale
attempts to set the locale for the given category to locale.
If setlocale succeeds, locale is returned. If setlocale
fails, a null pointer is returned and the program's locale
is not changed.
For category LCALL, the behavior is slightly different. If
a pointer to a string is given for locale and LCALL is
given for category, setlocale attempts to set the locale for
all the categories to locale. The locale may be a simple
locale, consisting of a single locale, or a composite
locale. A composite locale is a string beginning with a "/"
followed by the locale of each category separated by a "/".
If setlocale fails to set the locale for any category, a
null pointer is returnedand the program's locale for all
categories is not changed. Otherwise, locale is returned.
A null pointer for locale causes setlocale to return the
current locale associated with the category. The program's
locale is not changed.
FILES
/usr/lib/locale/C/LCCTYPE - LCCTYPE database for the C
locale.
/usr/lib/locale/C/LCNUMERIC - LCNUMERIC database for the C
locale.
/usr/lib/locale/C/LCTIME - LCTIME database for the C
locale.
/usr/lib/locale/C/LCCOLLATE - LCCOLLATE database for the C
locale.
/usr/lib/locale/C/LCMESSAGES - LCMESSAGES database for the
C locale.
/usr/lib/locale/locale/category - files containing the
locale specific information for each locale and category.
SEE ALSO
ctime(3C), ctype(3C), getdate(3C), gettxt(3G),
localeconv(3C), mbtowc(3C), printf(3S), strcoll(3C),
strftime(3C), strtod(3C), strxfrm(3C), wctomb(3C),
environ(5).
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