Located in the %SYBASE%\locales directory, locales.dat provides platform-specific locale information in a Sybase proprietary format. This file associates locale names with languages, character sets, and collating sequences.
WARNING! If you plan to use isql, which uses iso_1 as its client character set default when talking to a server, modify the character sets to prevent data corruption by performing one of the following:
Add a new entry to the section of the locales.dat file, such as isql.german.cp850, and call isql with option -J isql.
Set LANG=isql, to change the client character set to cp850.
Issue a command like mode con cp SELECT=1250 before calling isql, so that the display character set is changed to iso_1.
