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 which should be copied.

LC_CTYPE¶

The definition for the LC_CTYPE category starts with the string LC_CTYPE in the first column.

There are the following keywords allowed:

upper

followed by a list of uppercase letters. The letters A through Z are included automatically. Characters also specified as cntrl, 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 cntrl, digit, punct, or space are not allowed.

alpha

followed by a list of letters. All character specified as either 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 default in this class.

space

followed by a list of characters defined as white-space characters. 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 specified 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, alpha, digit, xdigit, and punct are automatically included. Characters 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, alpha, digit, xdigit, punct, and the <space> character are automatically included. Characters also specified as cntrl are not allowed.

xdigit

followed by a list of characters classified as hexadecimal digits. 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 characters <space> and <tab> are automatically included.

toupper

followed by a list of mappings from lowercase to uppercase letters. Each mapping is a pair of a lowercase and an uppercase letter separated with a , and enclosed in parentheses. The members of the list are separated with semicolons.

tolower

followed by a list of mappings from uppercase to lowercase letters. If the keyword tolower is not present, the reverse of the toupper list is used.

The LC_CTYPE definition ends with the string END LC_CYTPE.

LC_COLLATE¶

The LC_COLLATE category defines the rules for collating characters. Due to limitations of libc not all POSIX-options are implemented.

The definition starts with the string LC_COLLATE in the first column.

There are the following keywords allowed:

collating-element

collating-symbol

The order-definition starts with a line:

order_start

followed by a list of keywords out of forward, backward, or position. The order definition consists of lines that describe the order and is terminated with the keyword

order_end.

For more details see the sources in /usr/lib/nls/src notably the examples POSIX, Example and Example2

The LC_COLLATE definition ends with the string END LC_COLLATE.

LC_MONETARY¶

The definition starts with the string LC_MONETARY in the first column.

There are the following keywords 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 delimiter 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 string that describes the formatting of numeric quantities.

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 set to 1 if the currency_symbol or int_curr_symbol should precede the formatted monetary quantity or set to 0 if the symbol succeeds the value.

p_sep_by_space

followed by an integer.

n_cs_precedes

n_sep_by_space

An integer set to 0 if no space separates the currency_symbol or int_curr_symbol from the value for a negative monetary quantity, set to 1 if a space separates the symbol from the value and set to 2 if a space separates the symbol and the sign string, if adjacent.

p_sign_posn

n_sign_posn

The LC_MONETARY definition ends with the string END LC_MONETARY.

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 delimiter 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 string that describes the formatting of numeric quantities.

The LC_NUMERIC definition ends with the string END LC_NUMERIC.

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 weekday names. The list starts with the first day of the week as specified by week (Sunday by default).

day

followed by a list of weekday names. The list starts with the first day of the week as specified by week (Sunday by default).

abmon

followed by a list of abbreviated month names.

mon

followed by a list of month names.

am_pm

The appropriate representation of the am and pm strings.

d_t_fmt

The appropriate date and time format.

d_fmt

The appropriate date format.

t_fmt

The appropriate time format.

t_fmt_ampm

The appropriate time format when using 12h clock format.

week

followed by a list of three values: 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. Thus, countries using 19971130 should have local Sunday name as the first day in the day list, while countries using 19971201 should have Monday translation as the first item in the day list.

first_weekday (since glibc 2.2)

Number of the first day from the day list to be shown in calendar applications. The default value of 1 corresponds to either Sunday or Monday depending on the value of the second week list item.

first_workday (since glibc 2.2)

Number of the first working day from the day list.

The LC_TIME definition ends with the string END LC_TIME.

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-responses.

noexpr

followed by a regular expression that describes possible no-responses.

The LC_MESSAGES definition ends with the string END LC_MESSAGES.

See the POSIX.2 standard for details.