setlocale.3c (2010 09)

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setlocale(3C) setlocale(3C)

The string returned by setlocale() is such that a subsequent call with that string as the locale argu-

ment and its associated category restores that part of the program’s locale.

ERRORS

If a language name given through the locale argument does not identify a valid language name, or if the

language name is more than 256 characters, or if the language is not available on the system (see

lang(5)), then a null pointer is returned and the program’s locale is not changed. The same behavior

occurs when the call:

setlocale(LC_ALL, "");

is made and any category related environment variable in the user’s environment identiﬁes an invalid

language name or a language that is not available on the system.

If the category argument is not a deﬁned category value, a null pointer is returned and the program’s

locale is not changed.

setlocale() returns a string that reﬂects the current setting of that aspect of the NLS environment

corresponding to the category argument. If this return string is used in a subsequent

setlocale() call

and the category arguments of the two calls do not match, the locale remains unchanged and a null

pointer is returned.

EXAMPLES

To set a program’s entire locale based on the language requirements speciﬁed via the user’s environment

variables:

setlocale(LC_ALL, "");

If in the example the user’s environment variables were set as follows:

LANG ="de_DE.iso88591"

LC_COLLATE ="es_ES.iso88591"

LC_MONETARY =""

LC_TIME ="en_US.iso88591"

the LC_CTYPE, LC_MONETARY, and LC_NUMERIC category items would be set to correspond to the

de_DE.iso88591 language deﬁnition, the

LC_COLLATE category items would be set to correspond to

the

es_ES.iso88591 language deﬁnition for collation and the

LC_TIME category items would be set

corresponding to the

en_US.iso88591

language deﬁnition.

Using the same example, if the following call was made:

struct locale_data *locale_info=getlocale(LOCALE_STATUS);

the contents of *locale_info would be:

locale_info->LC_ALL_D="de_DE.iso88591"

locale_info->LC_COLLATE_D="es_ES.iso88591"

locale_info->LC_CTYPE_D="de_DE.iso88591"

locale_info->LC_MESSAGES_D="de_DE.iso88591"

locale_info->LC_MONETARY_D="de_DE.iso88591"

locale_info->LC_NUMERIC_D="de_DE.iso88591"

locale_info->LC_TIME_D="en_US.iso88591"

The next example shows the precedence of the LC_ALL environment variable:

setlocale(LC_ALL, "");

with the following settings in the user’s environment:

LANG=de_DE.iso88591

LC_ALL=fr_FR.iso88591

All categories will be loaded with fr_FR.iso88591.

Another example showing the precedence of the

LC_ALL environment variable:

setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "");

with the following settings in the user’s environment:

LANG=tr_TR.iso88599

LC_ALL=da_DK.iso88591

HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 3 − Hewlett-Packard Company 3