What Is a locale?

What Is a locale?

A locale is the part of a user's environment that brings together information about how to handle data that is specific to the end user's particular country, language, or territory. The locale is typically installed as part of the operating system.
A locale provides the following information for the user environment:

• Cultural conventions according to the language and country (or territory)
  • Data formats: Dates: define full and abbreviated names for weekdays and months, as well as the structure of the date (including date separator).
    Numbers: define symbols for the thousands separator and decimal point, as well as where these symbols are placed within the number.
    Times: define indicators for 12-hour time (such AM and PM indicators) as well as the structure of the time.
    Monetary values: define numeric and currency symbols, as well as where these symbols are placed within the monetary value.
  • Collation order indicates how to sort data for the particular character code set and language.
  • String handling includes tasks such as letter "case" (upper case and lower case) comparison, substrings, and concatenation.