Setting locales

A locale is a name used to refer to a group of settings that influence the behavior of the library routines used by programs to control the presentation of dates, currency, time, printable characters, and other data that vary between countries. By specifying a different locale, you can change the way programs present country-specific information. See the locale(C) manual page for more information.

Locales are software-specific. Character mapping for hardware devices (such as terminals and printers) is handled by a separate set of programs. See ``Device mapping''.

See also:

• ``Localization of system software''

• ``Setting the system locale''

• ``Setting user locales''

• ``About locales''

• ``Selecting codesets''

• ``Setting device character mapping''