all Python 3localefunction

locale.setlocale()

locale setup

Sets or queries the locale for a category (LC_NUMERIC, LC_ALL and others), which drives number separators, currency and collation.

Syntax

locale.setlocale(category, locale=None)

The main trap: the locale is state of the whole process, not of a module or thread. A call in one library silently changes atof(), format_string() and sorting across the program and in other threads, and setlocale itself is not thread-safe. Without the second argument it only reads the current value; setlocale(LC_ALL, '') adopts the locale from the environment, and a name the system lacks raises locale.Error. Until the first call every category except LC_CTYPE stays 'C'.

Examples

import locale
print(locale.setlocale(locale.LC_NUMERIC))  # → C — запрос, ничего не меняет
try:
    locale.setlocale(locale.LC_NUMERIC, 'ru_RU.UTF-8')
    print(locale.str(3.14))  # → ? 3,14 — если локаль есть в системе
except locale.Error as e:
    print('нет такой локали:', e)  # → ? unsupported locale setting

import locale
saved = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL)
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, '')  # → ? локаль из окружения: LANG, LC_ALL
print(locale.localeconv()['decimal_point'])  # → ? '.' или ',' — зависит от машины
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, saved)  # вернуть как было — для всего процесса
print(locale.localeconv()['decimal_point'])  # → .

See also

Common errors

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