Specifying the locale

About locales

The settings you can configure within a locale are:

collating sequence: The order in which a local character set is sorted. This is used by the sort(1) command and by programs that use regular expressions. See ``Regular expressions and locales''.
currency format: The character used to denote a unit of currency and the format used for printing monetary values.
character classification table: The table used to determine whether a given character is an upper or lowercase letter, a number, space, or some other class of symbol.
time/date format: The format in which the time and date are presented.
number format: The format in which numbers are printed (whether groups of digits are separated by a delimiter, and the type of delimiter to use for decimals).
response strings: The standard strings to print in place of the English words ``yes'' and ``no''.

Because the locale in use governs the interpretation of data rather than its representation, the same data might appear differently when presented under a different locale. In particular, electronic mail might be affected when it is sent from one locale to another; see ``How mail translates between locales''.