C Locale

The C locale, also known as the POSIX locale, is the POSIX system default locale for all POSIX-compliant systems. The Oracle Solaris operating system is a POSIX system. The Single UNIX Specification, Version 3, defines the C locale. Register at http://www.unix.org/version3/online.html to read and download the specification.

To run the internationalized programs in the C locale use any of the following ways:

• Unset all locale environment variables. Runs the application in the C locale.

  $ unset LC_ALL LANG LC_CTYPE LC_COLLATE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME LC_MONETARY LC_MESSAGES
    

• Explicitly set the locale to C or POSIX.

  $ LC_ALL=C
  $ export LANG=C
    

Some applications check the LANG environment variables without actually calling setlocale(3C) to reference the current locale. In this case, shell is explicitly set to the C locale by specifying the LC_ALL and LANG locale environment variables. For the precedence relationship among locale environment variables, see the man page.

To check the current locale settings in a terminal environment, run the locale(1) command.

$ locale
LANG=C
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_ALL=