Manual: locale

locale(1)				   General Commands Manual				   locale(1)

NAME
       locale - get locale-specific information

SYNOPSIS
       locale [option]

       locale [option] -a

       locale [option] -m

       locale [option] name ...

DESCRIPTION
       The locale command displays information about the current locale, or all locales, on standard output.

       When  invoked without arguments, locale displays the current locale settings for each locale category
       (see locale(5)), based on the settings of the environment variables that control the locale (see	 lo‐
       cale(7)).   Values  for	variables  set in the environment are printed without double quotes, implied
       values are printed with double quotes.

       If either the -a or the -m option (or one of their long-format equivalents) is specified, the  behav‐
       ior is as follows:

       --all-locales
       -a     Display  a list of all available locales.	 The -v option causes the LC_IDENTIFICATION metadata
	      about each locale to be included in the output.

       --charmaps
       -m     Display the available charmaps (character set description	 files).   To  display	the  current
	      character set for the locale, use locale -c charmap.

       The  locale  command  can  also be provided with one or more arguments, which are the names of locale
       keywords (for example, date_fmt, ctype-class-names, yesexpr, or decimal_point) or  locale  categories
       (for example, LC_CTYPE or LC_TIME).  For each argument, the following is displayed:

       •  For a locale keyword, the value of that keyword to be displayed.

       •  For a locale category, the values of all keywords in that category are displayed.

       When arguments are supplied, the following options are meaningful:

       --category-name
       -c     For a category name argument, write the name of the locale category on a separate line preced‐
	      ing the list of keyword values for that category.

	      For a keyword name argument, write the name of the locale category for this keyword on a sepa‐
	      rate line preceding the keyword value.

	      This  option  improves readability when multiple name arguments are specified.  It can be com‐
	      bined with the -k option.

       --keyword-name
       -k     For each keyword whose value is being displayed, include also the name  of  that	keyword,  so
	      that the output has the format:

		  keyword="value"

       The locale command also knows about the following options:

       --verbose
       -v     Display additional information for some command-line option and argument combinations.

       --help
       -?     Display a summary of command-line options and arguments and exit.

       --usage
	      Display a short usage message and exit.

       --version
       -V     Display the program version and exit.

FILES
       /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
	      Usual default locale archive location.

       /usr/share/i18n/locales
	      Usual default path for locale definition files.

STANDARDS
       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY
       POSIX.1-2001.

EXAMPLES
       $ locale;
       LANG=en_US.UTF-8
       LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
       LC_ALL=

       $ locale date_fmt;
       %a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y

       $ locale -k date_fmt;
       date_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"

       $ locale -ck date_fmt;
       LC_TIME
       date_fmt="%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"

       $ locale LC_TELEPHONE;
       +%c (%a) %l
       (%a) %l
       11
       1
       UTF-8

       $ locale -k LC_TELEPHONE;
       tel_int_fmt="+%c (%a) %l"
       tel_dom_fmt="(%a) %l"
       int_select="11"
       int_prefix="1"
       telephone-codeset="UTF-8"

       The following example compiles a custom locale from the ./wrk directory with the localedef(1) utility
       under  the $HOME/.locale directory, then tests the result with the date(1) command, and then sets the
       environment variables LOCPATH and LANG in the shell profile file so that the custom  locale  will  be
       used in the subsequent user sessions:

       $ mkdir -p $HOME/.locale;
       $ I18NPATH=./wrk/ localedef -f UTF-8 -i fi_SE $HOME/.locale/fi_SE.UTF-8;
       $ LOCPATH=$HOME/.locale LC_ALL=fi_SE.UTF-8 date;
       $ echo "export LOCPATH=\$HOME/.locale" >> $HOME/.bashrc;
       $ echo "export LANG=fi_SE.UTF-8" >> $HOME/.bashrc;

SEE ALSO
       localedef(1), charmap(5), locale(5), locale(7)

Linux man-pages 6.17				 2026-02-08					   locale(1)