2.6 locale.h

The locale header is useful for setting location specific information.

Variables:

struct lconv

Macros:

NULL
LC_ALL
LC_COLLATE
LC_CTYPE
LC_MONETARY
LC_NUMERIC
LC_TIME


Functions:

localeconv();
setlocale();


2.6.1 Variables and Definitions

The lconv structure contains the following variables in any order. The use of this structure is described in 2.6.3 localeconv.

char *decimal_point;
char *thousands_sep;
char *grouping;
char *int_curr_symbol;
char *currency_symbol;
char *mon_decimal_point;
char *mon_thousands_sep;
char *mon_grouping;
char *positive_sign;
char *negative_sign;
char int_frac_digits;
char frac_digits;
char p_cs_precedes;
char p_sep_by_space;
char n_cs_precedes;
char n_sep_by_space;
char p_sign_posn;
char n_sign_posn;


The LC_ macros are described in 2.6.2 setlocale. NULL is the value of a null pointer constant.

2.6.2 setlocale

Declaration:

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

Sets or reads location dependent information.

category can be one of the following:

A value of "C" for locale sets the locale to the normal C translation environment settings (default). A null value ("") sets the native environment settings. A null pointer (NULL) causes setlocale to return a pointer to the string associated with this category for the current settings (no changes occur). All other values are implementation-specific.

After a successful set, setlocale returns a pointer to a string which represents the previous location setting. On failure it returns NULL.

Example:

#include<locale.h>
#include<stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
  char *old_locale;

  old_locale=setlocale(LC_ALL,"C");
  printf("The preivous setting was %s.\n",old_locale);
  return 0;
}

2.6.3 localeconv

Declaration:

struct lconv *localeconv(void);

Sets the structure lconv to represent the current location settings.

The string pointers in the structure may point to a null string ("") which indicates that the value is not available. The char types are nonnegative numbers. If the value is CHAR_MAX, then the value is not available.

lconv variables:

The following values are used for p_sign_posn and n_sign_posn:

Example:

#include<locale.h>
#include<stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
  struct lconv locale_structure;
  struct lconv *locale_ptr=&locale_structure;

  locale_ptr=lcoaleconv();
  printf("Decimal point:                   %s",locale_ptr->decimal_point);
  printf("Thousands Separator:             %s",locale_ptr->thousands_sep);
  printf("Grouping:                        %s",locale_ptr->grouping);
  printf("International Currency Symbol:   %s",locale_ptr->int_curr_symbol);
  printf("Currency Symbol:                 %s",locale_ptr->currency_symbol);
  printf("Monetary Decimal Point:          %s",locale_ptr->mon_decimal_point);
  printf("Monetary Thousands Separator:    %s",locale_ptr->mon_thousands_sep);
  printf("Monetary Grouping:               %s",locale_ptr->mon_grouping);
  printf("Monetary Positive Sign:          %s",locale_ptr->positive_sign);
  printf("Monetary Negative Sign:          %s",locale_ptr->negative_sign);
  printf("Monetary Intl Decimal Digits:    %c",locale_ptr->int_frac_digits);
  printf("Monetary Decimal Digits:         %c",locale_ptr->frac_digits);
  printf("Monetary + Precedes:             %c",locale_ptr->p_cs_precedes);
  printf("Monetary + Space:                %c",locale_ptr->p_sep_by_space);
  printf("Monetary - Precedes:             %c",locale_ptr->n_cs_precedes);
  printf("Monetary - Space:                %c",locale_ptr->n_sep_by_space);
  printf("Monetary + Sign Posn:            %c",locale_ptr->p_sign_posn);
  printf("Monetary - Sign Posn:            %c",locale_ptr->n_sign_posn);
}