LOCALE(5) Linux User Manual LOCALE(5)
NAME
locale - describes a locale definition file
DESCRIPTION
The locale definition file contains all the information that the lo-
caledef(1) command needs to convert it into the binary locale database.
The definition files consist of sections which each describe a locale
category in detail. See locale(7) for additional details for these
categories.
Syntax
The locale definition file starts with a header that may consist of the
following keywords:
escape_char
is followed by a character that should be used as the escape-
character for the rest of the file to mark characters that
should be interpreted in a special way. It defaults to the
backslash (\).
comment_char
is followed by a character that will be used as the comment-
character for the rest of the file. It defaults to the number
sign (#).
The locale definition has one part for each locale category. Each part
can be copied from another existing locale or can be defined from
scratch. If the category should be copied, the only valid keyword in
the definition is copy followed by the name of the locale in double
quotes which should be copied. The exceptions for this rule are
LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE where a copy statement can be followed by lo-
cale-specific rules and selected overrides.
When defining a locale or a category from scratch, an existing system-
provided locale definition file should be used as a reference to follow
common glibc conventions.
Locale category sections
The following category sections are defined by POSIX:
* LC_CTYPE
* LC_COLLATE
* LC_MESSAGES
* LC_MONETARY
* LC_NUMERIC
* LC_TIME
In addition, since version 2.2, the GNU C library supports the follow-
ing nonstandard categories:
* LC_ADDRESS
* LC_IDENTIFICATION
* LC_MEASUREMENT
* LC_NAME
* LC_PAPER
* LC_TELEPHONE
See locale(7) for a more detailed description of each category.
LC_ADDRESS
The definition starts with the string LC_ADDRESS in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
postal_fmt
followed by a string containing field descriptors that define
the format used for postal addresses in the locale. The follow-
ing field descriptors are recognized:
%n Person's name, possibly constructed with the LC_NAME
name_fmt keyword (since glibc 2.24).
%a Care of person, or organization.
%f Firm name.
%d Department name.
%b Building name.
%s Street or block (e.g., Japanese) name.
%h House number or designation.
%N Insert an end-of-line if the previous descriptor's value was
not an empty string; otherwise ignore.
%t Insert a space if the previous descriptor's value was not an
empty string; otherwise ignore.
%r Room number, door designation.
%e Floor number.
%C Country designation, from the country_post keyword.
%l Local township within town or city (since glibc 2.24).
%z Zip number, postal code.
%T Town, city.
%S State, province, or prefecture.
%c Country, as taken from data record.
Each field descriptor may have an 'R' after the '%' to specify
that the information is taken from a Romanized version string of
the entity.
country_name
followed by the country name in the language of the current doc-
ument (e.g., "Deutschland" for the de_DE locale).
country_post
followed by the abbreviation of the country (see CERT_MAIL-
CODES).
country_ab2
followed by the two-letter abbreviation of the country (ISO
3166).
country_ab3
followed by the three-letter abbreviation of the country (ISO
3166).
country_num
followed by the numeric country code (ISO 3166).
country_car
followed by the international licence plate country code.
country_isbn
followed by the ISBN code (for books).
lang_name
followed by the language name in the language of the current
document.
lang_ab
followed by the two-letter abbreviation of the language (ISO
639).
lang_term
followed by the three-letter abbreviation of the language (ISO
639-2/T).
lang_lib
followed by the three-letter abbreviation of the language for
library use (ISO 639-2/B). Applications should in general pre-
fer lang_term over lang_lib.
The LC_ADDRESS definition ends with the string END LC_ADDRESS.
LC_CTYPE
The definition starts with the string LC_CTYPE in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
upper followed by a list of uppercase letters. The letters A through
Z are included automatically. Characters also specified as cn-
trl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed.
lower followed by a list of lowercase letters. The letters a through
z are included automatically. Characters also specified as cn-
trl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed.
alpha followed by a list of letters. All character specified as ei-
ther upper or lower are automatically included. Characters also
specified as cntrl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed.
digit followed by the characters classified as numeric digits. Only
the digits 0 through 9 are allowed. They are included by de-
fault in this class.
space followed by a list of characters defined as white-space charac-
ters. Characters also specified as upper, lower, alpha, digit,
graph, or xdigit are not allowed. The characters <space>,
<form-feed>, <newline>, <carriage-return>, <tab>, and <vertical-
tab> are automatically included.
cntrl followed by a list of control characters. Characters also spec-
ified as upper, lower, alpha, digit, punct, graph, print, or
xdigit are not allowed.
punct followed by a list of punctuation characters. Characters also
specified as upper, lower, alpha, digit, cntrl, xdigit, or the
<space> character are not allowed.
graph followed by a list of printable characters, not including the
<space> character. The characters defined as upper, lower, al-
pha, digit, xdigit, and punct are automatically included. Char-
acters also specified as cntrl are not allowed.
print followed by a list of printable characters, including the
<space> character. The characters defined as upper, lower, al-
pha, digit, xdigit, punct, and the <space> character are auto-
matically included. Characters also specified as cntrl are not
allowed.
xdigit followed by a list of characters classified as hexadecimal dig-
its. The decimal digits must be included followed by one or
more set of six characters in ascending order. The following
characters are included by default: 0 through 9, a through f, A
through F.
blank followed by a list of characters classified as blank. The char-
acters <space> and <tab> are automatically included.
charclass
followed by a list of locale-specific character class names
which are then to be defined in the locale.
toupper
followed by a list of mappings from lowercase to uppercase let-
ters. Each mapping is a pair of a lowercase and an uppercase
letter separated with a , and enclosed in parentheses.
tolower
followed by a list of mappings from uppercase to lowercase let-
ters. If the keyword tolower is not present, the reverse of the
toupper list is used.
map totitle
followed by a list of mapping pairs of characters and letters to
be used in titles (headings).
class followed by a locale-specific character class definition, start-
ing with the class name followed by the characters belonging to
the class.
charconv
followed by a list of locale-specific character mapping names
which are then to be defined in the locale.
outdigit
followed by a list of alternate output digits for the locale.
map to_inpunct
followed by a list of mapping pairs of alternate digits and sep-
arators for input digits for the locale.
map to_outpunct
followed by a list of mapping pairs of alternate separators for
output for the locale.
translit_start
marks the start of the transliteration rules section. The sec-
tion can contain the include keyword in the beginning followed
by locale-specific rules and overrides. Any rule specified in
the locale file will override any rule copied or included from
other files. In case of duplicate rule definitions in the lo-
cale file, only the first rule is used.
A transliteration rule consist of a character to be transliter-
ated followed by a list of transliteration targets separated by
semicolons. The first target which can be presented in the tar-
get character set is used, if none of them can be used the de-
fault_missing character will be used instead.
include
in the transliteration rules section includes a transliteration
rule file (and optionally a repertoire map file).
default_missing
in the transliteration rules section defines the default charac-
ter to be used for transliteration where none of the targets
cannot be presented in the target character set.
translit_end
marks the end of the transliteration rules.
The LC_CTYPE definition ends with the string END LC_CTYPE.
LC_COLLATE
Note that glibc does not support all POSIX-defined options, only the
options described below are supported (as of glibc 2.23).
The definition starts with the string LC_COLLATE in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
coll_weight_max
followed by the number representing used collation levels. This
keyword is recognized but ignored by glibc.
collating-element
followed by the definition of a collating-element symbol repre-
senting a multicharacter collating element.
collating-symbol
followed by the definition of a collating symbol that can be
used in collation order statements.
define followed by string to be evaluated in an ifdef string / else /
endif construct.
reorder-after
followed by a redefinition of a collation rule.
reorder-end
marks the end of the redefinition of a collation rule.
reorder-sections-after
followed by a script name to reorder listed scripts after.
reorder-sections-end
marks the end of the reordering of sections.
script followed by a declaration of a script.
symbol-equivalence
followed by a collating-symbol to be equivalent to another de-
fined collating-symbol.
The collation rule definition starts with a line:
order_start
followed by a list of keywords chosen from forward, backward, or
position. The order definition consists of lines that describe
the collation order and is terminated with the keyword or-
der_end.
The LC_COLLATE definition ends with the string END LC_COLLATE.
LC_IDENTIFICATION
The definition starts with the string LC_IDENTIFICATION in the first
column.
The following keywords are allowed:
title followed by the title of the locale document (e.g., "Maori lan-
guage locale for New Zealand").
source followed by the name of the organization that maintains this
document.
address
followed by the address of the organization that maintains this
document.
contact
followed by the name of the contact person at the organization
that maintains this document.
email followed by the email address of the person or organization that
maintains this document.
tel followed by the telephone number (in international format) of
the organization that maintains this document. As of glibc
2.24, this keyword is deprecated in favor of other contact meth-
ods.
fax followed by the fax number (in international format) of the or-
ganization that maintains this document. As of glibc 2.24, this
keyword is deprecated in favor of other contact methods.
language
followed by the name of the language to which this document ap-
plies.
territory
followed by the name of the country/geographic extent to which
this document applies.
audience
followed by a description of the audience for which this docu-
ment is intended.
application
followed by a description of any special application for which
this document is intended.
abbreviation
followed by the short name for provider of the source of this
document.
revision
followed by the revision number of this document.
date followed by the revision date of this document.
In addition, for each of the categories defined by the document, there
should be a line starting with the keyword category, followed by:
* a string that identifies this locale category definition,
* a semicolon, and
* one of the LC_* identifiers.
The LC_IDENTIFICATION definition ends with the string END LC_IDENTIFI-
CATION.
LC_MESSAGES
The definition starts with the string LC_MESSAGES in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
yesexpr
followed by a regular expression that describes possible yes-re-
sponses.
noexpr followed by a regular expression that describes possible no-re-
sponses.
yesstr followed by the output string corresponding to "yes".
nostr followed by the output string corresponding to "no".
The LC_MESSAGES definition ends with the string END LC_MESSAGES.
LC_MEASUREMENT
The definition starts with the string LC_MEASUREMENT in the first col-
umn.
The following keywords are allowed:
measurement
followed by number identifying the standard used for measure-
ment. The following values are recognized:
1 Metric.
2 US customary measurements.
The LC_MEASUREMENT definition ends with the string END LC_MEASUREMENT.
LC_MONETARY
The definition starts with the string LC_MONETARY in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
int_curr_symbol
followed by the international currency symbol. This must be a
4-character string containing the international currency symbol
as defined by the ISO 4217 standard (three characters) followed
by a separator.
currency_symbol
followed by the local currency symbol.
mon_decimal_point
followed by the string that will be used as the decimal delim-
iter when formatting monetary quantities.
mon_thousands_sep
followed by the string that will be used as a group separator
when formatting monetary quantities.
mon_grouping
followed by a sequence of integers separated by semicolons that
describe the formatting of monetary quantities. See grouping
below for details.
positive_sign
followed by a string that is used to indicate a positive sign
for monetary quantities.
negative_sign
followed by a string that is used to indicate a negative sign
for monetary quantities.
int_frac_digits
followed by the number of fractional digits that should be used
when formatting with the int_curr_symbol.
frac_digits
followed by the number of fractional digits that should be used
when formatting with the currency_symbol.
p_cs_precedes
followed by an integer that indicates the placement of cur-
rency_symbol for a nonnegative formatted monetary quantity:
0 the symbol succeeds the value.
1 the symbol precedes the value.
p_sep_by_space
followed by an integer that indicates the separation of cur-
rency_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a nonnegative
formatted monetary quantity. The following values are recog-
nized:
0 No space separates the currency symbol and the value.
1 If the currency symbol and the sign string are adjacent, a
space separates them from the value; otherwise a space sepa-
rates the currency symbol and the value.
2 If the currency symbol and the sign string are adjacent, a
space separates them from the value; otherwise a space sepa-
rates the sign string and the value.
n_cs_precedes
followed by an integer that indicates the placement of cur-
rency_symbol for a negative formatted monetary quantity. The
same values are recognized as for p_cs_precedes.
n_sep_by_space
followed by an integer that indicates the separation of cur-
rency_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a negative for-
matted monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for
p_sep_by_space.
p_sign_posn
followed by an integer that indicates where the positive_sign
should be placed for a nonnegative monetary quantity:
0 Parentheses enclose the quantity and the currency_symbol or
int_curr_symbol.
1 The sign string precedes the quantity and the currency_sym-
bol or the int_curr_symbol.
2 The sign string succeeds the quantity and the currency_sym-
bol or the int_curr_symbol.
3 The sign string precedes the currency_symbol or the
int_curr_symbol.
4 The sign string succeeds the currency_symbol or the
int_curr_symbol.
n_sign_posn
followed by an integer that indicates where the negative_sign
should be placed for a negative monetary quantity. The same
values are recognized as for p_sign_posn.
int_p_cs_precedes
followed by an integer that indicates the placement of
int_curr_symbol for a nonnegative internationally formatted mon-
etary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_cs_pre-
cedes.
int_n_cs_precedes
followed by an integer that indicates the placement of
int_curr_symbol for a negative internationally formatted mone-
tary quantity. The same values are recognized as for p_cs_pre-
cedes.
int_p_sep_by_space
followed by an integer that indicates the separation of
int_curr_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a nonnega-
tive internationally formatted monetary quantity. The same val-
ues are recognized as for p_sep_by_space.
int_n_sep_by_space
followed by an integer that indicates the separation of
int_curr_symbol, the sign string, and the value for a negative
internationally formatted monetary quantity. The same values
are recognized as for p_sep_by_space.
int_p_sign_posn
followed by an integer that indicates where the positive_sign
should be placed for a nonnegative internationally formatted
monetary quantity. The same values are recognized as for
p_sign_posn.
int_n_sign_posn
followed by an integer that indicates where the negative_sign
should be placed for a negative internationally formatted mone-
tary quantity. The same values are recognized as for
p_sign_posn.
The LC_MONETARY definition ends with the string END LC_MONETARY.
LC_NAME
The definition starts with the string LC_NAME in the first column.
Various keywords are allowed, but only name_fmt is mandatory. Other
keywords are needed only if there is common convention to use the cor-
responding salutation in this locale. The allowed keywords are as fol-
lows:
name_fmt
followed by a string containing field descriptors that define
the format used for names in the locale. The following field
descriptors are recognized:
%f Family name(s).
%F Family names in uppercase.
%g First given name.
%G First given initial.
%l First given name with Latin letters.
%o Other shorter name.
%m Additional given name(s).
%M Initials for additional given name(s).
%p Profession.
%s Salutation, such as "Doctor".
%S Abbreviated salutation, such as "Mr." or "Dr.".
%d Salutation, using the FDCC-sets conventions.
%t If the preceding field descriptor resulted in an empty
string, then the empty string, otherwise a space character.
name_gen
followed by the general salutation for any gender.
name_mr
followed by the salutation for men.
name_mrs
followed by the salutation for married women.
name_miss
followed by the salutation for unmarried women.
name_ms
followed by the salutation valid for all women.
The LC_NAME definition ends with the string END LC_NAME.
LC_NUMERIC
The definition starts with the string LC_NUMERIC in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
decimal_point
followed by the string that will be used as the decimal delim-
iter when formatting numeric quantities.
thousands_sep
followed by the string that will be used as a group separator
when formatting numeric quantities.
grouping
followed by a sequence of integers separated by semicolons that
describe the formatting of numeric quantities.
Each integer specifies the number of digits in a group. The
first integer defines the size of the group immediately to the
left of the decimal delimiter. Subsequent integers define suc-
ceeding groups to the left of the previous group. If the last
integer is not -1, then the size of the previous group (if any)
is repeatedly used for the remainder of the digits. If the last
integer is -1, then no further grouping is performed.
The LC_NUMERIC definition ends with the string END LC_NUMERIC.
LC_PAPER
The definition starts with the string LC_PAPER in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
height followed by the height, in millimeters, of the standard paper
format.
width followed by the width, in millimeters, of the standard paper
format.
The LC_PAPER definition ends with the string END LC_PAPER.
LC_TELEPHONE
The definition starts with the string LC_TELEPHONE in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
tel_int_fmt
followed by a string that contains field descriptors that iden-
tify the format used to dial international numbers. The follow-
ing field descriptors are recognized:
%a Area code without nationwide prefix (the prefix is often
"00").
%A Area code including nationwide prefix.
%l Local number (within area code).
%e Extension (to local number).
%c Country code.
%C Alternate carrier service code used for dialing abroad.
%t If the preceding field descriptor resulted in an empty
string, then the empty string, otherwise a space character.
tel_dom_fmt
followed by a string that contains field descriptors that iden-
tify the format used to dial domestic numbers. The recognized
field descriptors are the same as for tel_int_fmt.
int_select
followed by the prefix used to call international phone numbers.
int_prefix
followed by the prefix used from other countries to dial this
country.
The LC_TELEPHONE definition ends with the string END LC_TELEPHONE.
LC_TIME
The definition starts with the string LC_TIME in the first column.
The following keywords are allowed:
abday followed by a list of abbreviated names of the days of the week.
The list starts with the first day of the week as specified by
week (Sunday by default). See NOTES.
day followed by a list of names of the days of the week. The list
starts with the first day of the week as specified by week (Sun-
day by default). See NOTES.
abmon followed by a list of abbreviated month names.
mon followed by a list of month names.
d_t_fmt
followed by the appropriate date and time format (for syntax,
see strftime(3)).
d_fmt followed by the appropriate date format (for syntax, see strf-
time(3)).
t_fmt followed by the appropriate time format (for syntax, see strf-
time(3)).
am_pm followed by the appropriate representation of the am and pm
strings. This should be left empty for locales not using AM/PM
convention.
t_fmt_ampm
followed by the appropriate time format (for syntax, see strf-
time(3)) when using 12h clock format. This should be left empty
for locales not using AM/PM convention.
era followed by semicolon-separated strings that define how years
are counted and displayed for each era in the locale. Each
string has the following format:
direction:offset:start_date:end_date:era_name:era_format
The fields are to be defined as follows:
direction
Either + or -. + means the years closer to start_date have
lower numbers than years closer to end_date. - means the
opposite.
offset
The number of the year closest to start_date in the era,
corresponding to the %Ey descriptor (see strptime(3)).
start_date
The start of the era in the form of yyyy/mm/dd. Years prior
AD 1 are represented as negative numbers.
end_date
The end of the era in the form of yyyy/mm/dd, or one of the
two special values of -* or +*. -* means the ending date is
the beginning of time. +* means the ending date is the end
of time.
era_name
The name of the era corresponding to the %EC descriptor (see
strptime(3)).
era_format
The format of the year in the era corresponding to the %EY
descriptor (see strptime(3)).
era_d_fmt
followed by the format of the date in alternative era notation,
corresponding to the %Ex descriptor (see strptime(3)).
era_t_fmt
followed by the format of the time in alternative era notation,
corresponding to the %EX descriptor (see strptime(3)).
era_d_t_fmt
followed by the format of the date and time in alternative era
notation, corresponding to the %Ec descriptor (see strptime(3)).
alt_digits
followed by the alternative digits used for date and time in the
locale.
week followed by a list of three values separated by semicolons: The
number of days in a week (by default 7), a date of beginning of
the week (by default corresponds to Sunday), and the minimal
length of the first week in year (by default 4). Regarding the
start of the week, 19971130 shall be used for Sunday and
19971201 shall be used for Monday. See NOTES.
first_weekday (since glibc 2.2)
followed by the number of the day from the day list to be shown
as the first day of the week in calendar applications. The de-
fault value of 1 corresponds to either Sunday or Monday depend-
ing on the value of the second week list item. See NOTES.
first_workday (since glibc 2.2)
followed by the number of the first working day from the day
list. The default value is 2. See NOTES.
cal_direction
followed by a number value that indicates the direction for the
display of calendar dates, as follows:
1 Left-right from top.
2 Top-down from left.
3 Right-left from top.
date_fmt
followed by the appropriate date representation for date(1) (for
syntax, see strftime(3)).
The LC_TIME definition ends with the string END LC_TIME.
FILES
/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
Usual default locale archive location.
/usr/share/i18n/locales
Usual default path for locale definition files.
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.2.
NOTES
The collective GNU C library community wisdom regarding abday, day,
week, first_weekday, and first_workday states at https://source-
ware.org/glibc/wiki/Locales the following:
* The value of the second week list item specifies the base of the ab-
day and day lists.
* first_weekday specifies the offset of the first day-of-week in the
abday and day lists.
* For compatibility reasons, all glibc locales should set the value of
the second week list item to 19971130 (Sunday) and base the abday
and day lists appropriately, and set first_weekday and first_workday
to 1 or 2, depending on whether the week and work week actually
starts on Sunday or Monday for the locale.
SEE ALSO
iconv(1), locale(1), localedef(1), localeconv(3), newlocale(3), setlo-
cale(3), strftime(3), strptime(3), uselocale(3), charmap(5),
charsets(7), locale(7), unicode(7), utf-8(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.07 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2020-06-09 LOCALE(5)