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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  implementation-
              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 OPERANDS 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 internationalization 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 standard 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  environment 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, Environment 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 output 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 Definitions  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   Definitions   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 keyword 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, Copyright (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.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .