2.3 Localization

Question 2

Why is it important to configure locale settings?

Answer 2

The locale settings determine the way inforation is displayed on the computer and how data is encoded. If set incorrectly, information may be presented to users in ways that are unfamiliar to them, and data integrity issues may occur within applications and databases.

Question 3

What type of elements can be configured using the locale settings?

Answer 3

The locale settings can configure the language and encoding of the text displayed on screen, character classes, sort order, number formatting, currency type, currency format, and date/time format.

Question 4

What is the syntax of the locale settings?

Answer 4

The locale setting uses the format: Language_territory.codset@modifier. Examples: en_GB.UTF-8 and de_DE.euro.

Question 5

Which environment variable overrides all other locale settings?

Answer 5

The LC_ALL variable is a special variable for overriding all other settings. It sets all locales to the same setting.

Question 6

What is a locale?

Answer 6

A locale is a set of files that Linux uses to determine country and language-specific settings for various applications.

Question 7

What does the locale setting do?

Answer 7

The locale setting determines the way data displays on a computer:

• The language and encoding of the text displayed on screen
• Character classes
• Sort order
• Number formatting
• Currency type and format
• Date and time display

Question 8

What are the key characteristics of the locale setting?

Answer 8

The locale setting:

• Uses configuration files that are part of the system library and are located in /usr/share/locale on most distributions.
• Uses language codes specified in ISO-639 and county codes specified in ISO-3166.
• Uses the format: language_territory.codset@modifier. Examples: en_GB.UTF-8, de_DE.euro, and en_IE.iso885915@euro.

Question 9

How are locale codes implemented?

Answer 9

Locale codes are implemented using environment variables. For example LANG=en_US.UTF-8 specifies that the computer uses US English with a UTF-8 encoding when displaying information.

Question 10

What are the four components of the locale setting?

Answer 10

1. Language - ISO 639 language code, always lowercase
2. Territory - ISO 3166 country code, always uppercase
3. Codeset - Encoding format, such as UTF-8 or UTF-16
4. Modifier - Seldom used

Question 11

What is the order of precedence for the locale variables?

Answer 11

• If the LC_ALL variable is set, it overrides all LC_* variables, whether they are set or not. They are not even checked.
• if the LC_ALL variable is not set or is null, then the values of the individual LC_* variables are used.
• if the LC_ALL variable is not set and an individual LC_* variable is not set or is null, then the value of the LANG variable is used as the value of the unset LC_* variable.

Question 12

How do you view all current locale settings?

Answer 12

The locale command displays all current locale settings.

Question 13

What does the locale command do?

Answer 13

The locale command displays all current locale settings.

Question 14

How do you view the current encoding being used on the system?

Answer 14

The locale charmap command displays the current encoding being used on the system.

Question 15

What does the locale charmap command do?

Answer 15

The locale charmap command displays the current encoding being used on the system.

Question 16

How do you view a list of all available locale settings on the system?

Answer 16

The locale -a command displays a list of all available locale settings on the system.

Question 17

What does the locale -a command do?

Answer 17

The locale -a command displays a list of all available locale settings on the system.

Question 18

How do you view a list of all available encodings on the system?

Answer 18

The locale -m command displays a list of all available encodings on the system.

Question 19

What does the locale -m command do?

Answer 19

The locale -m command displays a list of all available encodings on the system.

Question 20

How can you convert from one encoding to another?

Answer 20

The iconv command converts from one encoding to another.

Question 21

What does the command iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t UTF-8 infile.txt do?

Answer 21

Converts the file infile.txt from ISO8859-1 encoding to UTF-8 and writes the result to standar output. (You can write the result to a new file using redirection or with the -o file_name option.)

Question 22

What does the LANG locale variable do?

Answer 22

The LANG variable defines all locale settings at once, while allowing further individual customization via the LC_* settings.

Question 23

What does setting the locale variable LANG=C accomplish?

Answer 23

When LANG=C, programs display output without passing it through locale translations. This is helpful when the output is being corrupted by the locale, and will help avoid some types of problems, such as when using pipelines and scripts that pass on a program’s data to another program in binary form.

Question 24

Whose responsibility is localization support?

Answer 24

Localization support is the responsibility of the program’s author. Many programs only support one language or a small subset of languages.

Question 25

What does the LC_CTYPE locale variable do?

Answer 25

The LC_CTYPE variable defines the character handling properties for the computer. This determines whether characters are recognized as alphabetical, numeric and so on. This also determines the character set used, if applicable.

Question 26

What does the LC_MESSAGES locale variable do?

Answer 26

The LC_MESSAGES variable specifies localizations for applications that use a message-based localization scheme.

Question 27

What does the LC_COLLATE locale variable do?

Answer 27

The LC_COLLATE variable defines the alphabetical ordering of strings, such as the output of sorted directory listings.

Question 28

What does the LC_NUMERIC locale variable do?

Answer 28

The LC_NUMERIC variable defines formatting for numeric values that are not monetary. It affects things such as the thousands separator and the decimal separator.

Question 29

What does the LC_MONETARY locale variable do?

Answer 29

The LC_MONETARY variable defines currency units and formatting of currency type and numeric values.

Question 30

What does the LC_TIME locale variable do?

Answer 30

The LC_TIME variable defines formatting for dates and times.

Question 31

What does the LC_PAPER locale variable do?

Answer 31

The LC_PAPER variable defines the default paper size.

Question 32

What does the LC_NAME locale variable do?

Answer 32

The LC_NAME variable specifies personal name format. This includes things like whether the surname comes first or last.

Question 33

What does the LC_ADDRESS locale variable do?

Answer 33

The LC_ADDRESS variable is used for address formatting.

Question 34

What does the LC_TELEPHONE locale variable do?

Answer 34

The LC_TELEPHONE variable defines telephone number format.

Question 35

What does the LC_MEASUREMENT locale variable do?

Answer 35

The LC_MEASUREMENT variable determines what measurement units are used.

Question 36

What does the LANGUAGE locale variable do?

Answer 36

The LANGUAGE variable is used as an override for LC_MESSAGES.

Question 37

What does the LC_ALL locale variable do?

Answer 37

The LC_ALL variable is a special variable for overriding all other settings. It sets all locales to the same setting.

Question 38

Which directory contains the locale configuration files on a Linux distribution?

Answer 38

The /usr/share/locale directory contains the locale configuration files on a Linux distribution.