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# setlocale

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

setlocale — Set locale information

### Description

string setlocale ( int `$category` , string `$locale` [, string `$...` ] )
string setlocale ( int `$category` , array `$locale` )

Sets locale information.

### Parameters

`category`

  `category` is a named constant specifying the category of the functions affected by the locale setting:

  - `LC_ALL` for all of the below
  - `LC_COLLATE` for string comparison, see strcoll()
  - `LC_CTYPE` for character classification and conversion, for example strtoupper()
  - `LC_MONETARY` for localeconv()
  - `LC_NUMERIC` for decimal separator (See also localeconv())
  - `LC_TIME` for date and time formatting with strftime()
  - `LC_MESSAGES` for system responses (available if PHP was compiled with libintl)
`locale`

  If `locale` is `NULL` or the empty string "", the locale names will be set from the values of environment variables with the same names as the above categories, or from "LANG".

  If `locale` is "0", the locale setting is not affected, only the current setting is returned.

  If `locale` is an array or followed by additional parameters then each array element or parameter is tried to be set as new locale until success. This is useful if a locale is known under different names on different systems or for providing a fallback for a possibly not available locale.

`...`

  (Optional string or array parameters to try as locale settings until success.)

> Note:

> On Windows, setlocale(LC_ALL, '') sets the locale names from the system's regional/language settings (accessible via Control Panel).

### Return Values

Returns the new current locale, or `FALSE` if the locale functionality is not implemented on your platform, the specified locale does not exist or the category name is invalid.

An invalid category name also causes a warning message. Category/locale names can be found in » RFC 1766 and » ISO 639. Different systems have different naming schemes for locales.

> Note:

> The return value of setlocale() depends on the system that PHP is running. It returns exactly what the system setlocale function returns.

### Changelog

Version | Description
--- | ---
5.3.0 | This function now throws an `E_DEPRECATED` notice if a string is passed to the `category` parameter instead of one of the LC_* constants.
4.3.0 | Passing multiple locales became possible.
4.2.0 | Passing `category` as a string is now deprecated, use the above constants instead. Passing them as a string (within quotes) will result in a warning message.

### Examples

Example #1 setlocale() Examples

`<?php
/* Set locale to Dutch */
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'nl_NL');
/* Output: vrijdag 22 december 1978 */
echo strftime("%A %e %B %Y", mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 22, 1978));
/* try different possible locale names for german as of PHP 4.3.0 */
$loc_de = setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE@euro', 'de_DE', 'de', 'ge');
echo "Preferred locale for german on this system is '$loc_de'";
?>`

Example #2 setlocale() Examples for Windows

`<?php
/* Set locale to Dutch */
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'nld_nld');
/* Output: vrijdag 22 december 1978 */
echo strftime("%A %d %B %Y", mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 22, 1978));
/* try different possible locale names for german as of PHP 4.3.0 */
$loc_de = setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE@euro', 'de_DE', 'deu_deu');
echo "Preferred locale for german on this system is '$loc_de'";
?>`

### Notes

Warning

The locale information is maintained per process, not per thread. If you are running PHP on a multithreaded server API like IIS or Apache on Windows, you may experience sudden changes in locale settings while a script is running, though the script itself never called setlocale(). This happens due to other scripts running in different threads of the same process at the same time, changing the process-wide locale using setlocale().

Tip

Windows users will find useful information about `locale` strings at Microsoft's MSDN website. Supported language strings can be found in the » language strings documentation and supported country/region strings in the » country/region strings documentation.

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