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(libc.info)Standard Locales

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Standard Locales
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   The only locale names you can count on finding on all operating
systems are these three standard ones:

`"C"'
     This is the standard C locale.  The attributes and behavior it
     provides are specified in the ISO C standard.  When your program
     starts up, it initially uses this locale by default.

`"POSIX"'
     This is the standard POSIX locale.  Currently, it is an alias for
     the standard C locale.

`""'
     The empty name says to select a locale based on environment
     variables.  Note: Locale Categories.

   Defining and installing named locales is normally a responsibility of
the system administrator at your site (or the person who installed the
GNU C library).  It is also possible for the user to create private
locales.  All this will be discussed later when describing the tool to
do so.

   If your program needs to use something other than the `C' locale, it
will be more portable if you use whatever locale the user specifies
with the environment, rather than trying to specify some non-standard
locale explicitly by name.  Remember, different machines might have
different sets of locales installed.