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Function [other Function type actions]
Document [operators of similar scope]
Date-time [other Date-time operators]
Baseline
locale(code)
locale(), allows changing of the locale used to translate dates. The same date can be written in a different format in different parts of the world. For example, in the USA a date is written 12/1/2006 to denote December 1, whereas in UK the same date is written 1/12/2006 and so on for variations around the world.
The action
locale("en_GB")
sets the current locale to 'British English'. Locale codes begin with a two-letter language code, followed by and underscore and a two-letter region code. These are ISO standards ISO-639 and ISO-3166 respectively. Code combinations are available for any language supported by macOS.
To return to the user's preferred locale, i.e. as derived from their Mac's OS account, use
locale();
You may also save the old locale in an attribute for subsequent use. For example:
$OldLocale=local("en_GB");
…do various things…
local($OldLocale);
Note that changing the locale() can be fairly time-consuming, as lots of machinery must be torn down and rebuilt for each change.