Python 3 Tutorial

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Python Locales

     Every Computer System has Locale Settings configured to your regions or country. The set of settings related to the language and region in which your computer program executes. Examples are language,, currency and time formats, character encoding etc.,

In Other words

Every Country has its own culture, The language they speak, Date formats,time formats, Currency, Telephone numbers, measurements (Miles,Kilo meters) etc.,

Locale module can help you to display in native formats.

Import locale module

			import locale
		

I am using Linux , Fedora Operating System, and it is configured to Asia/Kolkata region, India has different Number System, Telephone Number format, Currency Symbol, Date Time formats etc., Measurements like Kilometers, liters,Kilograms etc., as shown below. Default Encoding is UTF-8 , means all Indian Language Characters require more than one byte

Type locale at command prompt

			$  locale
		

The following output displayed

		
LANG=en_IN.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

		

Using Python get locale settings

			import locale
			
			print(locale.getlocale()[0]," ",locale.getlocale()[1]);
			en_IN   UTF-8

			#en_IN   English India
			#Encoding UTF-8
		

locale module has method called getlocale, getdefaultlocale methods, which returns a tuple, first element is language the system is configured to, type of encoding system using

Display all locale settings

			>>> locale.locale_alias
		

locale_alias is a dictionary , key value pair,

Change locale settings according to your needs
Currency and Symbols Date Format for Different Locales

		locale.setlocal(locale.LC_ALL,'en-IN')
		time.strftime("%c",time.time())
		
		locale.setlocal(locale.LC_ALL,'Japanese')
		time.strftime("%c",time.time())
		
		locale.setlocal(locale.LC_ALL,'German')
		time.strftime("%c",time.time())
		

Currency Format for Different Locales

>>> locale.currency(100000,symbol=True,grouping=True,international=True)
'INR 1,00,000.00'
>>> locale.currency(100000,symbol=False,grouping=True,international=True)
'1,00,000.00'
>>> locale.currency(100000)
'₹100000.00'
>>> locale.currency(100000,grouping=True)
'₹1,00,000.00'
>>> 
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'en_IN')
'en_IN'
>>> locale.currency(100000,grouping=True)
'₹1,00,000.00'
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'en_US')
'en_US'
>>> locale.currency(100000,grouping=True)
'$100,000.00'
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'en_GB')
'en_GB'
>>> locale.currency(100000,grouping=True)
'£100,000.00'
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'Japanese')
'Japanese'
>>> locale.currency(100000,grouping=True)
'￥100,000'
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'German')
'German'
>>> locale.currency(100000,grouping=True)
'100.000,00 EUR'
>>> 

		

Thousand Seperateor for different Countrys

>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'en_IN')
'en_IN'
>>> locale.localize("100000",grouping=True,monetary=False)
'1,00,000'
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'en_US')
'en_US'
>>> locale.localize("100000",grouping=True,monetary=False)
'100,000'
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL,'en_GB')
'en_GB'
>>> locale.localize("100000",grouping=True,monetary=False)
'100,000'
>>>