locale(1) General Commands Manual locale(1)
NAME
locale - get locale-specific information
SYNOPSIS
locale [option]
locale [option] -a
locale [option] -m
locale [option] name...
DESCRIPTION
The locale command displays information about the current locale, or all
locales, on standard output.
When invoked without arguments, locale displays the current locale set-
tings for each locale category (see locale(5)), based on the settings of
the environment variables that control the locale (see locale(7)). Val-
ues for variables set in the environment are printed without double
quotes, implied values are printed with double quotes.
If either the -a or the -m option (or one of their long-format equiva-
lents) is specified, the behavior is as follows:
--all-locales
-a Display a list of all available locales. The -v option causes
the LC_IDENTIFICATION metadata about each locale to be included
in the output.
--charmaps
-m Display the available charmaps (character set description files).
To display the current character set for the locale, use locale
-c charmap.
The locale command can also be provided with one or more arguments,
which are the names of locale keywords (for example, date_fmt,
ctype-class-names, yesexpr, or decimal_point) or locale categories (for
example, LC_CTYPE or LC_TIME). For each argument, the following is dis-
played:
• For a locale keyword, the value of that keyword to be displayed.
• For a locale category, the values of all keywords in that category
are displayed.
When arguments are supplied, the following options are meaningful:
--category-name
-c For a category name argument, write the name of the locale cate-
gory on a separate line preceding the list of keyword values for
that category.
For a keyword name argument, write the name of the locale cate-
gory for this keyword on a separate line preceding the keyword
value.
This option improves readability when multiple name arguments are
specified. It can be combined with the -k option.
--keyword-name
-k For each keyword whose value is being displayed, include also the
name of that keyword, so that the output has the format:
keyword="value"
The locale command also knows about the following options:
--verbose
-v Display additional information for some command-line option and
argument combinations.
--help
-? Display a summary of command-line options and arguments and exit.
--usage
Display a short usage message and exit.
--version
-V Display the program version and exit.
FILES
/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
Usual default locale archive location.
/usr/share/i18n/locales
Usual default path for locale definition files.
STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2008.
HISTORY
POSIX.1-2001.
EXAMPLES
$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=
$ locale date_fmt
%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y
$ locale -k date_fmt
date_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
$ locale -ck date_fmt
LC_TIME
date_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
$ locale LC_TELEPHONE
+%c (%a) %l
(%a) %l
11
1
UTF-8
$ locale -k LC_TELEPHONE
tel_int_fmt="+%c (%a) %l"
tel_dom_fmt="(%a) %l"
int_select="11"
int_prefix="1"
telephone-codeset="UTF-8"
The following example compiles a custom locale from the ./wrk directory
with the localedef(1) utility under the $HOME/.locale directory, then
tests the result with the date(1) command, and then sets the environment
variables LOCPATH and LANG in the shell profile file so that the custom
locale will be used in the subsequent user sessions:
$ mkdir -p $HOME/.locale
$ I18NPATH=./wrk/ localedef -f UTF-8 -i fi_SE $HOME/.locale/fi_SE.UTF-8
$ LOCPATH=$HOME/.locale LC_ALL=fi_SE.UTF-8 date
$ echo "export LOCPATH=\$HOME/.locale" >> $HOME/.bashrc
$ echo "export LANG=fi_SE.UTF-8" >> $HOME/.bashrc
SEE ALSO
localedef(1), charmap(5), locale(5), locale(7)
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