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LOCALE
!!!LOCALE
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
CONFORMS TO
SEE ALSO
----
!!NAME


locale - Description of multi-language 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, lexigraphic conventions, etc. 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()__ to set the
current locale, and __localeconv()__ to get information
about number formatting.


There are different categories for local information a
program might need; they are declared as macros. Using them
as the first argument to the __setlocale()__ function, it
is possible to set one of these to the desired
locale:


__LC_COLLATE__


This is used to change the behaviour of the functions
__strcoll()__ and __strxfrm()__, which are used to
compare strings in the local alphabet. For example, the
German sharp s is sorted as __


__LC_CTYPE__


This changes the behaviour of the character handling and
classification functions, such as __isupper()__ and
__toupper()__, and the multi-byte character functions
such as __mblen()__ or __wctomb()__.


__LC_MONETARY__


changes the information returned by __localeconv()__
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()__.


__LC_MESSAGES__


changes the language messages are displayed in and how an
affirmative or negative answer looks like. The GNU C-library
contains the __rpmatch()__ function to ease the use of
these information.


__LC_NUMERIC__


changes the information used by the __printf()__ and
__scanf()__ family of functions, when they are advised to
use the locale-settings. This information can also be read
with the __localeconv()__ function.


__LC_TIME__


changes the behaviour of the __strftime()__ function to
display the current time in a locally acceptable form; for
example, most of Europe uses a 24-hour clock vs. the US'
12-hour clock.


__LC_ALL__


All of the above.


If the second argument to __setlocale()__ is 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
categories above exists and is non-null, its value is used
for that category.


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()__
function, which has the following declaration:


struct lconv
{
/* Numeric (non-monetary) information.  */
char *decimal_point;        /* Decimal point character.  */
char *thousands_sep;        /* Thousands separator.  */
/* Each element is the number of digits in each group;
elements with higher indices are farther 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 farther left.  */
char *grouping;
/* Monetary information.  */
/* First three chars are a currency symbol from ISO 4217.
Fourth char is the separator.  Fifth char is ' '.  */
char *int_curr_symbol;
char *currency_symbol; /* Local currency symbol.  */
char *mon_decimal_point;    /* Decimal point character.  */
char *mon_thousands_sep;    /* Thousands separator.  */
char *mon_grouping;         /* Like `grouping' element (above).  */
char *positive_sign;        /* Sign for positive values.  */
char *negative_sign;        /* Sign for negative values.  */
char int_frac_digits;       /* Int'l fractional digits.  */
char frac_digits;      /* Local fractional digits.  */
/* 1 if currency_symbol precedes a positive value, 0 if succeeds.  */
char p_cs_precedes;
/* 1 if a space separates currency_symbol from a positive value.  */
char p_sep_by_space;
/* 1 if currency_symbol precedes a negative value, 0 if succeeds.  */
char n_cs_precedes;
/* 1 if a space separates currency_symbol from a negative value.  */
char n_sep_by_space;
/* 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;
};
!!CONFORMS TO


POSIX.1
!!SEE ALSO


setlocale(3), localeconv(3), locale(1),
localedef(1), rpmatch(3), strfmon(3),
strcoll(3), strxfrm(3),
strftime(3)
----
26 pages link to locale(7):
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Last edited on Tuesday, June 4, 2002 12:30:59 am by "perry"
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