Provided by: manpages-posix_2.16-1_all 
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 .
IEEE/The Open Group 2003 LOCALE(P)