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.TH NEWLOCALE 3 2017-09-15 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"

.SH NAME

newlocale, freelocale \- create, modify, and free a locale object

.SH SYNOPSIS

.nf

.B #include <locale.h>

.PP

.BI "locale_t newlocale(int " category_mask ", const char *" locale ",

.BI "                   locale_t " base );

.PP

.BI "void freelocale(locale_t " locobj );

.fi

.PP

.in -4n

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see

.BR feature_test_macros (7)):

.in

.PP

.BR newlocale (),

.BR freelocale ():

.PD 0

.RS 4

.TP

Since glibc 2.10:

_XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 700

.TP

Before glibc 2.10:

_GNU_SOURCE

.RE

.PD

.SH DESCRIPTION

The

.BR newlocale ()

function creates a new locale object, or modifies an existing object,

returning a reference to the new or modified object as the function result.

Whether the call creates a new object or modifies an existing object

is determined by the value of

.IR base :

.IP * 3

If

.I base

is

.IR "(locale_t)\ 0" ,

a new object is created.

.IP *

If

.I base

refers to valid existing locale object

(i.e., an object returned by a previous call to

.BR newlocale ()

or

.BR duplocale (3)),

then that object is modified by the call.

If the call is successful, the contents of

.I base

are unspecified (in particular, the object referred to by

.I base

may be freed, and a new object created).

Therefore, the caller should ensure that it stops using

.I base

before the call to

.BR newlocale (),

and should subsequently refer to the modified object via the

reference returned as the function result.

If the call fails, the contents of

.I base

remain valid and unchanged.

.PP

If

.I base

is the special locale object

.BR LC_GLOBAL_LOCALE

(see

.BR duplocale (3)),

or is not

.IR "(locale_t)\ 0"

and is not a valid locale object handle,

the behavior is undefined.

.PP

The

.I category_mask

argument is a bit mask that specifies the locale categories

that are to be set in a newly created locale object

or modified in an existing object.

The mask is constructed by a bitwise OR of the constants

.BR LC_ADDRESS_MASK ,

.BR LC_CTYPE_MASK ,

.BR LC_COLLATE_MASK ,

.BR LC_IDENTIFICATION_MASK ,

.BR LC_MEASUREMENT_MASK ,

.BR LC_MESSAGES_MASK ,

.BR LC_MONETARY_MASK ,

.BR LC_NUMERIC_MASK ,

.BR LC_NAME_MASK ,

.BR LC_PAPER_MASK ,

.BR LC_TELEPHONE_MASK ,

and

.BR LC_TIME_MASK .

Alternatively, the mask can be specified as

.BR LC_ALL_MASK ,

which is equivalent to ORing all of the preceding constants.

.PP

For each category specified in

.IR category_mask ,

the locale data from

.I locale

will be used in the object returned by

.BR newlocale ().

If a new locale object is being created,

data for all categories not specified in

.IR category_mask

is taken from the default ("POSIX") locale.

.PP

The following preset values of

.I locale

are defined for all categories that can be specified in

.IR category_mask :

.TP

"POSIX"

A minimal locale environment for C language programs.

.TP

"C"

Equivalent to "POSIX".

.TP

""

An implementation-defined native environment

corresponding to the values of the

.BR LC_*

and

.B LANG

environment variables (see

.BR locale (7)).

.SS freelocale()

The

.BR freelocale ()

function deallocates the resources associated with

.IR locobj ,

a locale object previously returned by a call to

.BR newlocale ()

or

.BR duplocale (3).

If

.I locobj

is

.BR LC_GLOBAL_LOCALE

or is not valid locale object handle, the results are undefined.

.PP

Once a locale object has been freed,

the program should make no further use of it.

.SH RETURN VALUE

On success,

.BR newlocale ()

returns a handle that can be used in calls to

.BR duplocale (3),

.BR freelocale (),

and other functions that take a

.I locale_t

argument.

On error,

.BR newlocale ()

returns

.IR "(locale_t)\ 0",

and sets

.I errno

to indicate the cause of the error.

.SH ERRORS

.TP

.B EINVAL

One or more bits in

.I category_mask

do not correspond to a valid locale category.

.TP

.B EINVAL

.I locale

is NULL.

.TP

.B ENOENT

.I locale

is not a string pointer referring to a valid locale.

.TP

.B ENOMEM

Insufficient memory to create a locale object.

.SH VERSIONS

The

.BR newlocale ()

and

.BR freelocale ()

functions first appeared in version 2.3 of the GNU C library.

.SH CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2008.

.SH NOTES

Each locale object created by

.BR newlocale ()

should be deallocated using

.BR freelocale ().

.SH EXAMPLE

The program below takes up to two command-line arguments,

which each identify locales.

The first argument is required, and is used to set the

.B LC_NUMERIC

category in a locale object created using

.BR newlocale ().

The second command-line argument is optional;

if it is present, it is used to set the

.B LC_TIME

category of the locale object.

.PP

Having created and initialized the locale object,

the program then applies it using

.BR uselocale (3),

and then tests the effect of the locale changes by:

.IP 1. 3

Displaying a floating-point number with a fractional part.

This output will be affected by the

.B LC_NUMERIC

setting.

In many European-language locales,

the fractional part of the number is separated from the integer part

using a comma, rather than a period.

.IP 2.

Displaying the date.

The format and language of the output will be affected by the

.B LC_TIME

setting.

.PP

The following shell sessions show some example runs of this program.

.PP

Set the

.B LC_NUMERIC

category to

.IR fr_FR

(French):

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

$ \fB./a.out fr_FR\fP

123456,789

Fri Mar  7 00:25:08 2014

.EE

.in

.PP

Set the

.B LC_NUMERIC

category to

.IR fr_FR

(French),

and the

.B LC_TIME

category to

.IR it_IT

(Italian):

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

$ \fB./a.out fr_FR it_IT\fP

123456,789

ven 07 mar 2014 00:26:01 CET

.EE

.in

.PP

Specify the

.B LC_TIME

setting as an empty string,

which causes the value to be taken from environment variable settings

(which, here, specify

.IR mi_NZ ,

New Zealand Māori):

.PP

.in +4n

.EX

$ LC_ALL=mi_NZ ./a.out fr_FR ""

123456,789

Te Paraire, te 07 o Poutū-te-rangi, 2014 00:38:44 CET

.EE

.in

.SS Program source

.EX

#define _XOPEN_SOURCE 700

#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>

#include <locale.h>

#include <time.h>

#define errExit(msg)    do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \\

                        } while (0)

int

main(int argc, char *argv[])

{

    char buf[100];

    time_t t;

    size_t s;

    struct tm *tm;

    locale_t loc, nloc;

    if (argc < 2) {

        fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s locale1 [locale2]\\n", argv[0]);

        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);

    }

    /* Create a new locale object, taking the LC_NUMERIC settings

       from the locale specified in argv[1] */

    loc = newlocale(LC_NUMERIC_MASK, argv[1], (locale_t) 0);

    if (loc == (locale_t) 0)

        errExit("newlocale");

    /* If a second command\-line argument was specified, modify the

       locale object to take the LC_TIME settings from the locale

       specified in argv[2]. We assign the result of this newlocale()

       call to 'nloc' rather than 'loc', since in some cases, we might

       want to preserve 'loc' if this call fails. */

    if (argc > 2) {

        nloc = newlocale(LC_TIME_MASK, argv[2], loc);

        if (nloc == (locale_t) 0)

            errExit("newlocale");

        loc = nloc;

    }

    /* Apply the newly created locale to this thread */

    uselocale(loc);

    /* Test effect of LC_NUMERIC */

    printf("%8.3f\\n", 123456.789);

    /* Test effect of LC_TIME */

    t = time(NULL);

    tm = localtime(&t);

    if (tm == NULL)

        errExit("time");

    s = strftime(buf, sizeof(buf), "%c", tm);

    if (s == 0)

        errExit("strftime");

    printf("%s\\n", buf);

    /* Free the locale object */

    freelocale(loc);

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);

}

.EE

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR locale (1),

.BR duplocale (3),

.BR setlocale (3),

.BR uselocale (3),

.BR locale (5),

.BR locale (7)

.SH COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux

.I 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/.