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
       settings  for each locale category (see locale(5)), based on the set‐
       tings of the environment variables that control the locale  (see  lo‐
       cale(7)).   Values  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 equiv‐
       alents) 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  in‐
              cluded 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 displayed:

       •  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
              category on a separate line preceding the list of keyword val‐
              ues for that category.

              For a keyword name argument, write the name of the locale cat‐
              egory  for  this keyword on a separate line preceding the key‐
              word 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  direc‐
       tory with the localedef(1) utility under the $HOME/.locale directory,
       then tests the result with the date(1) command, and then sets the en‐
       vironment  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)

Linux man-pages 6.7              2023-10-31                        locale(1)