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setlocale()

Select a program's locale

Synopsis:

#include <locale.h>

char * setlocale( int category, 
                  const char * locale );

Arguments:

category

The part of the environment that you want to set; one of:

• LC_ALL -- select the entire locale environment.
• LC_COLLATE -- select only the collating sequence.
• LC_CTYPE -- select only the character-handling information.
• LC_MESSAGES -- specify the language to be used for messages.
• LC_MONETARY -- select only monetary formatting information.
• LC_NUMERIC -- select only the numeric-format environment.
• LC_TIME -- select only the time-related environment.

locale

The locale that you want to use. The following built-in locales are offered:

• C (default)
• C-TRADITIONAL
• POSIX

Library:

libc

Use the -l c option to qcc to link against this library. This library is usually included automatically.

Description:

The setlocale() function selects a program's locale, according to the specified category and the specified locale.

A locale affects several things:

• The collating sequence (the order in which characters compare with one another) used by strcoll() or wcscoll().
• The way certain character-handling functions (such as isalnum() and isalpha()) operate. The wide-character versions include iswalnum() and iswalpha().
• The decimal-point character used in formatted input/output and string conversion (printf(), scanf(), and friends).
• The format and names used in the string produced by the strftime() and wcsftime() functions.

See the localeconv() function for more information about the locale.

At the start of a program, the default C locale is initialized as if the following call to setlocale() appeared at the start of main():

(void)setlocale( LC_ALL, "C" );

Returns:

A pointer to a system-generated string indicating the previous locale, or NULL if an error occurs.

Classification:

ANSI, POSIX 1003.1

Safety:
Cancellation point	No
Interrupt handler	No
Signal handler	No
Thread	Yes

See also:

isalpha(), isascii(), localeconv(), printf(), scanf(), strcat(), strchr(), strcmp(), strcoll(), strcpy(), strftime(), strlen(), strpbrk(), strspn(), strtod(), strtok(), strxfrm(), tm

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