Changes or queries the program's entire current locale or portions thereof.
Standard C Library (libc.a)
The setlocale subroutine selects all or part of the program's locale specified by the Category and Locale parameters. The setlocale subroutine then changes or queries the specified portion of the locale. The LC_ALL value for the Category parameter names the entire locale (all the categories). The other Category values name only a portion of the program locale.
The Locale parameter specifies a string that provides information needed to set certain conventions in the Category parameter. The components of the Locale parameter are language and territory. Values allowed for the locale argument are the predefined language_territory combinations or a user-defined locale.
If a user defines a new locale, a uniquely named locale definition source file must be provided. The character collation, character classification, monetary, numeric, time, and message information should be provided in this file. The locale definition source file is converted to a binary file by the localedef command. The binary locale definition file is accessed in the directory specified by the LOCPATH environment variable.
The default locale at program startup is the C locale. A call to the setlocale subroutine must be made explicitly to change this default locale environment.
The locale state is common to all threads within a process.
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Category | Specifies a value representing all or part of the locale
for a program. Depending on the value of the Locale parameter,
these categories may be initiated by the values of environment variables
with corresponding names. Valid values for the Category parameter,
as defined in the locale.h file, are:
|
| Locale | Points to a character string containing the required setting
for the Category parameter. The following are special values for the Locale parameter:
For more information about supported locale values for the Locale parameter, see Supported languages and locales in AIX® Version 7.1 National Language Support Guide and Reference. |
If a pointer to a string is given for the Locale parameter and the selection can be honored, the setlocale subroutine returns the string associated with the specified Category parameter for the new locale. If the selection cannot be honored, a null pointer is returned and the program locale is unchanged.
If a null is used for the Locale parameter, the setlocale subroutine returns the string associated with the Category parameter for the program's current locale. The program's locale is not changed.
A subsequent call with the string returned by the setlocale subroutine, and its associated category, will restore that part of the program locale. The string returned is not modified by the program, but can be overwritten by a subsequent call to the setlocale subroutine.