The locales.dat file

The locales file, called locales.dat, provides platform-specific locale information in a Sybase proprietary format. This file associates locale names with languages, character sets and collating sequences.

Open Client applications use locales.dat to determine what localization information to load. The locales.dat file directs Open Client applications to localization information, but it does not contain actual localized messages or character set information.

locales.dat contains platform-specific sections, each of which contains predefined locale definition entries. These entries vary by platform, but all sections include an entry defining a “default” locale.

Locale definition entries have the form:

locale = locale_name, language_name, charset_name [,sortorder_name]

where:

• locale_name is the name of the locale definition. The default values for locale_name are vendor-specified and based on POSIX terminology. Comments at the end of locales.dat list POSIX values for locale names.

• , (comma) is the list separator character for the file.

• language_name is the subdirectory name by which Sybase products recognize the language.

• charset_name is the subdirectory name by which Sybase products recognize the character set.

• sortorder_name is the file name by which Sybase products recognize the collating sequence (optional).

The following locales.dat file entry specifies a French locale. Because no sort order is specified, the default sort order “binary” is used with this locale:

locale = fr.FR.88591, french, iso_1

The following portion of locales.dat illustrates a platform-specific section:

[aix]

      locale = C, us_english, iso_1

      locale = En_US, us_english, iso_1

      locale = en_US, us_english, iso_1

      locale = default, us_english, iso_1

      locale = japanese.sjis, japanese, sjis

      locale = japanese, japanese, eucjis

      locale = us_english.utf8, us_english, utf8

If the predefined entries in locales.dat do not meet your needs, edit the file with an operating system editor such as vi.

Edit locales.dat to:

• Change the “default” locale definition.

• Add a locale definition.

• Match a locale name used by non-Sybase software. For example, the Sybase predefined locale name is “fr”:

  locale = fr, french, iso_1
  

  If a non-Sybase application requires a value of “french” for the LC_ALL environment variable, change the locale name to:

  locale = french, french, iso_1
  

To add a new entry to locales.dat or to change an existing entry:

1. Choose any value for locale_name.

2. Determine the value for language_name.

   When a Sybase language module is installed, a subdirectory for the language is created in the locales/message directory of the Sybase directory tree. language_name must correspond to this subdirectory’s name.

3. Determine the value for charset_name.

   When a Sybase language module is installed, subdirectories for each supported character set are created in the charsets directory of the Sybase directory tree. charset_name must correspond to one of these subdirectory names.

4. Determine the value for sortorder_name (if you want a sort order other than binary).

   The charsets/charset_name subdirectory contains the sort order (*.srt) files for the character set. sortorder_name must correspond to one of these file names (without the .srt).

5. In the appropriate platform-specific section of the locales.dat file, type in or change the appropriate entry.

   Update localization environment variables (LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGE, LC_TIME, LANG) as appropriate.

If you have added a new locale name and you want existing applications to use this new name in cs_locale calls, edit and recompile the applications as appropriate.