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Index for
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Alphabetical
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l10n_intro(5)
NAME
l10n_intro, l10n, locales, LOCPATH - Introduction to localization (L10N)
DESCRIPTION
Localization refers to the process of establishing information within a
computer system specific to each supported language, cultural data, and
coded character set (codeset) combination. Each such combination gives
rise to the definition of one locale. The abbreviation L10N is often used
to stand for localization as there are 10 characters between the beginning
"L" and the ending "N" of that word.
See i18n_intro(5) for introductory information about internationalization
and how to use system commands to set a locale. For information about
creating locales, refer to localedef(1), charmap(4), and locale(4). For
information about creating locales and writing applications that use
locales, refer to Writing Software for the International Market.
The current release of the operating system supports the following
languages with locales. Each language is discussed separately in its own
reference page:
Catalan
Chinese (Simplified and Traditional)
Czech
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Icelandic
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Slovak
Slovene
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
For some of the languages, more than one codeset and country or territory
are supported. Hence, multiple locales are supported for certain languages.
The following list names and describes all the supported locales. For
information about the character encoding used by a particular locale, refer
to the reference page for the codeset specified in the last part of the
locale name or, for those that end in .UTF-8, to Unicode(5).
ca_ES.ISO8859-1
Catalan locale for Spain (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
ca_ES.ISO8859-15
Catalan locale for Spain (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
ca_ES.UTF-8
Catalan locale for Spain (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
cs_CZ.ISO8859-2
Czech locale for Czech Republic (uses the Latin-2 codeset)
da_DK.ISO8859-1
Danish locale for Denmark (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
da_DK.ISO8859-15
Danish locale for Denmark (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
da_DK.UTF-8
Danish locale for Denmark (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
de_CH.ISO8859-1
German locale for Switzerland (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
de_CH.ISO8859-15
German locale for Switzerland (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
de_CH.UTF-8
German locale for Switzerland (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
de_DE.ISO8859-1
German locale for Germany (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
de_DE.ISO8859-15
German locale for Germany (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
de_DE.UTF-8
German locale for Germany (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
el_GR.ISO8859-7
Greek locale for Greece (uses the ISO Greek codeset)
el_GR.UTF-8
Greek locale for Greece (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
en_GB.ISO8859-1
English locale for Great Britain (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
en_GB.ISO8859-15
English locale for Great Britain (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
en_GB.UTF-8
English locale for Great Britain (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
en_EU.UTF-8@euro
English locale that includes the euro character (uses the UTF-8
codeset)
This locale both supports the euro character and defines the
decimal point as a comma (,) and the thousands separator as a
period (.). Therefore, this locale is useful in many European
countries, not just those for which English is the native language,
when assigned only to the LC_MONETARY locale category or
environment variable.
en_US.ISO8859-1
English locale for the U.S. (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
en_US.ISO8859-15
English locale for the U.S. (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
en_US.cp850
English locale for the U.S. (uses cp850 encoding)
Use this locale with data that contains accented characters and
that was generated on a PC using the cp850 code page for character
encoding. This character encoding is usually the default for the
DOS and Windows operating systems in Europe. The en_US.ISO8859-1
and en_US.cp850 locales encode English characters the same way but
use different values for accented and other non-English characters
in the Latin-1 character set.
en_US.UTF-8
en_US.UTF-8@euro
English locales for the U.S. (use the UTF-8 codeset)
The @euro variant defines the local currency sign to be the euro
character and the international currency sign to be EUR. See also
en_EU.UTF-8@euro.
es_ES.ISO8859-1
Spanish locale for Spain (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
es_ES.ISO8859-15
Spanish locale for Spain (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
es_ES.UTF-8
Spanish locale for Spain (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
fi_FI.ISO8859-1
Finnish locale for Finland (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
fi_FI.ISO8859-15
Finnish locale for Finland (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
fi_FI.UTF-8
Finnish locale for Finland (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
fr_BE.ISO8859-1
French locale for Belgium (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
fr_BE.ISO8859-15
French locale for Belgium (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
fr_BE.UTF-8
French locale for Belgium (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
fr_CA.ISO8859-1
French locale for Canada (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
fr_CA.ISO8859-15
French locale for Canada (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
fr_CA.UTF-8
French locale for Canada (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
fr_CH.ISO8859-1
French locale for Switzerland (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
fr_CH.ISO8859-15
French locale for Switzerland (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
fr_CH.UTF-8
French locale for Switzerland (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
fr_FR.ISO8859-1
French locale for France (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
fr_FR.ISO8859-15
French locale for France (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
fr_FR.UTF-8
French locale for France (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
he_IL.ISO8859-8
Hebrew locale for Israel (uses the ISO Hebrew codeset)
hu_HU.ISO8859-2
Hungarian locale for Hungary (uses the Latin-2 codeset)
is_IS.ISO8859-1
Icelandic locale for Iceland (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
is_IS.ISO8859-15
Icelandic locale for Iceland (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
is_IS.UTF-8
Icelandic locale for Iceland (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
it_IT.ISO8859-1
Italian locale for Italy (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
it_IT.ISO8859-15
Italian locale for Italy (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
it_IT.UTF-8
Italian locale for Italy (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
iw_IL.ISO8859-8
Hebrew locale for Israel (uses the ISO Hebrew codeset)
This locale name is supported for backward compatibility. The
recommended name to use for the ISO Hebrew locale is
he_IL.ISO8859-8.
ja_JP.SJIS
Japanese locale for Japan (uses the Shift JIS codeset)
ja_JP.deckanji
Japanese locale for Japan (uses the DEC Kanji codeset)
ja_JP.eucJP
Japanese locale for Japan (uses the Japanese EUC codeset)
ja_JP.sdeckanji
Japanese locale for Japan (uses the Super DEC Kanji codeset)
ja_JP.UTF-8
Japanese locale for Japan (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
ko_KR.deckorean
Korean locale for Korea (uses the DEC Korean codeset)
ko_KR.eucKR
Korean locale for Korea (uses the Korean EUC codeset)
ko_KR.UTF-8
Korean locale for Korea (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
lt_LT.ISO8859-4
Lithuanian locale for Lithuania (uses the Latin-4 codeset)
nl_BE.ISO8859-1
Flemish locale for Belgium (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
nl_BE.ISO8859-15
Flemish locale for Belgium (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
nl_BE.UTF-8
Flemish locale for Belgium (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
nl_NL.ISO8859-1
Dutch locale for the Netherlands (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
nl_NL.ISO8859-15
Dutch locale for the Netherlands (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
nl_NL.UTF-8
Dutch locale for the Netherlands (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
no_NO.ISO8859-1
Norwegian locale for Norway (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
no_NO.ISO8859-15
Norwegian locale for Norway (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
no_NO.UTF-8
Norwegian locale for Norway (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
pl_PL.ISO8859-2
Polish locale for Poland (uses the Latin-2 codeset)
pt_PT.ISO8859-1
Portuguese locale for Portugal (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
pt_PT.ISO8859-15
Portuguese locale for Portugal (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
pt_PT.UTF-8
Portuguese locale for Portugal (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
ru_RU.ISO8859-5
Russian locale for Russia (uses the ISO Cyrillic codeset)
sk_SK.ISO8859-2
Slovak locale for Slovakia (uses the Latin-2 codeset)
sl_SI.ISO8859-2
Slovene locale for Slovenia (uses the Latin-2 codeset)
sv_SE.ISO8859-1
Swedish locale for Sweden (uses the Latin-1 codeset)
sv_SE.ISO8859-15
Swedish locale for Sweden (uses the Latin-9 codeset)
sv_SE.UTF-8
Swedish locale for Sweden (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
th_TH.TACTIS
Thai locale for Thailand (uses the TACTIS codeset)
tr_TR.ISO8859-9
Turkish locale for Turkey (uses the Latin-5 codeset)
zh_CN.dechanzi
Simplified Chinese locale for the People's Republic of China (uses
the DEC Hanzi codeset)
zh_CN.GBK
Simplified Chinese locale for the People's Republic of China (uses
the GBK codeset, an extension of the GB 2312-80 codeset)
zh_CN.GB18030
Simplified Chinese locale for the People's Republic of China (uses
the GB18030 codeset, which extends GBK by means of 4-byte encoding)
zh_CN.UTF-8
Simplified Chinese locale for the People's Republic of China (uses
the UTF-8 codeset)
zh_HK.big5
Traditional Chinese locale for Hong Kong (uses the BIG-5 codeset)
zh_HK.dechanyu
Traditional Chinese locale for Hong Kong (uses the DEC Hanyu
codeset)
zh_HK.dechanzi
Simplified Chinese locale for Hong Kong (uses the DEC Hanzi codeset
zh_HK.eucTW
Traditional Chinese locale for Hong Kong (uses the Taiwanese EUC
codeset)
zh_HK.UTF-8
Traditional Chinese locale for Hong Kong (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
zh_TW.big5
Traditional Chinese locale for Taiwan (uses the BIG-5 codeset)
zh_TW.dechanyu
Traditional Chinese locale for Taiwan (uses the DEC Hanyu codeset)
zh_TW.eucTW
Traditional Chinese locale for Taiwan (uses the Taiwanese EUC
codeset)
zh_TW.UTF-8
Traditional Chinese locale for Taiwan (uses the UTF-8 codeset)
This locale supports Simplified Chinese as well as Traditional
Chinese.
For the zh_CN.dechanzi locale, the @pinyin, @radical, and @stroke variants
are available for sorting by pinyin, radical, and stroke, respectively. For
the zh_TW.big5, zh_TW.dechanyu, and zh_TW.eucTW locales, the @chuyin,
@radical, and @stroke variants are available for sorting by chuyin,
radical, and stroke, respectively. These variant locale names (those
including the @collation_modifier suffix) are available for assignment to
the LC_COLLATE variable.
The locales whose names end in .UTF-8 support file code and internal
process code according to the ISO 10646 and Unicode standards. The
universal.UTF-8 locale is also available (for use by applications rather
than end users) and supports the complete set of characters in the
Universal Character Set (UCS). For .UTF-8 locales, file code may include
characters encoded in more than one byte, so these locales should not be
used by applications that do not use wide-character functions for data
manipulation.
For some locales that use traditional UNIX and proprietary codesets, there
are also corresponding @ucs4 locale variants available for use by
applications that require internal process code to be in UCS-4 format while
file code remains in the format of the traditional UNIX or proprietary
codeset. In other words, both UTF-8 and @ucs4 locales use UCS-4 format for
internal process code, but differ in terms of file code support. Refer to
Unicode(5) for more information about encoding formats of the @ucs4 and
.UTF-8 locales.
The .UTF-8 and .ISO8859-15 locales are the only locales that include the
euro (C=) monetary sign in the coded character set. The *.UTF-8@euro
locales also define the local currency sign to be the euro character and
the international currency sign to be EUR. See euro(5) for more information
about the euro character and how it is supported.
You can use the -a option with the locale command to list all the locales
available on the system. Note that the POSIX (or C) locale is always
available because it must exist on all systems that conform to The Open
Group's UNIX specifications. The POSIX locale is the default locale when
locale variables are not set.
Note
The dxterm terminal emulator does not support locales based on the
following codesets:
· Unicode (UTF-8)
· Latin-9 (ISO8859-15)
Use dtterm, the default terminal emulator for the Common Desktop
Environment (CDE), with locales based on the Latin-9 and UTF-8 codesets.
Environment Variables Related to Localization
The following system environment variables can be set (usually only by
installed applications or by programmers who are testing applications or
converters under development) to override the default search path for
certain kinds of localized files:
LOCPATH
Specifies the search path for locales and codeset converters. Note
that this environment variable is not defined by current industry
standards. For more information, refer to the iconv_intro(5),
iconv_open(3), and setlocale(3) reference pages.
Because the LOCPATH variable is not defined by standards, it is
recommended for use only when testing locales or converters under
development and not as a systemwide method for finding installed
converters or locales. When you set LOCPATH, make sure that the search
path is valid for both locales and converters. Otherwise, application
and system software will be able to find only locales or only
converters in environments where both kinds of files are required.
NLSPATH
Specifies the search path for message catalogs, which contain
translated text for programs. This variable is used primarily by the
catopen() function. Refer to the catopen(3) reference page for detailed
information on NLSPATH.
Customizing Locales
Partial source files, along with an associated Makefile, are available for
many locales in the /usr/lib/nls/loc/src directory. By editing one of these
source files and using the Makefile to rebuild the locale (make
locale_name), you can customize one or more of the following features:
· The format of affirmative and negative responses (LC_MESSAGES section)
· Rules and symbols for formatting monetary numeric information
(LC_MONETARY section)
· Rules and symbols for formatting nonmonetary numeric information
(LC_NUMERIC section)
· Rules and symbols for formatting date and time information (LC_TIME
section)
The LC_CTYPE and LC_COLLATE sections of these locale sources are not
customizable. This means that you cannot use one of these sources to change
how characters are classified or collated. By implication, this also means
that you cannot add a new character to a locale that does not already
support it. For example, you cannot add the European monetary character
(euro) to a locale that does not already support that character. However,
you can edit the LC_MONETARY section to define a string identifier for euro
by using characters that the locale does support. For example, you could
replace the existing monetary symbol with EUR.
For more information on a locale source file, see locale(4).
Caution
Customized versions of locales that are provided with the operating
system are not preserved when the operating system is reinstalled,
even when an update installation procedure is used. Therefore, it is
important to back up files for customized locales and their sources
before reinstalling the operating system. After the reinstallation is
complete, you will need to restore your customized locales to the
system. If the newly installed sources have revisions when compared to
the old sources, it might be preferable to apply your customizations
to the newly installed sources and rebuild your customized locales.
SEE ALSO
Commands: locale(1), localedef(1)
Functions: catopen(3)
Files: charmap(4), locale(4)
Others: Catalan(5), Chinese(5), Czech(5), dechanyu(5), dechanzi(5),
deckanji(5), deckorean(5), Dutch(5), eucJP(5), eucKR(5), eucTW(5), euro(5),
Finnish(5), French(5), GB18030(5), GBK(5) ,German(5), Greek(5), Hebrew(5),
Hungarian(5), i18n_intro(5), i18n_printing(5), Icelandic(5),
iconv_intro(5), iso2022(5), iso2022jp(5), iso8859-1(5), iso8859-2(5),
iso8859-4(5), iso8859-5(5), iso8859-7(5), iso8859-8(5), iso8859-9(5),
iso8859-15(5), Italian(5), Japanese(5), jiskanji(5), Korean(5),
Lithuanian(5), Norwegian(5), Polish(5), Portuguese(5), Russian(5),
sbig5(5), sdeckanji(5), shiftjis(5), Slovak(5), Slovene(5), Spanish(5),
Swedish(5), TACTIS(5), telecode(5) Thai(5), Turkish(5), Unicode(5)
Writing Software for the International Market
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Index for
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Alphabetical
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Top of
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