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<chapter id="charset">

<title>Localization</>

<listitem>

<para>

Using the locale features of the operating system to provide

locale-specific collation order, number formatting,and other

aspects.

locale-specific collation order, number formatting,translated

messages, and otheraspects.

</para>

</listitem>

with servers with or without locale support.

</para>

<para>

To enable messages translated to the user's preferred language,

the <option>--enable-nls</option> option must be used. This

option is independent of the other locale support.

</para>

<para>

The information about which particular cultural rules to use is

determined by standard environment variables. If you are getting

</tgroup>

</informaltable>

<envar>LC_MESSAGES</> only affects the messages that come from the

operating system, not <productname>PostgreSQL</>.

Additionally, all of these specific variables and the

<envar>LANG</> variable can be overridden with the

<envar>LC_ALL</> environment variable.

</para>

<note>

<para>

Some message localization libraries also look at the environment

variable <envar>LANGUAGE</envar> which overrides all other locale

settings for the purpose of setting the language of messages. If

in doubt, please refer to the documentation of your operating

system, in particular the

<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gettext</><manvolnum>3</></> manual

page, for more information.

</para>

</note>

<para>

If you want the system to behave as if it had no locale support,

use the special locale <literal>C</> or <literal>POSIX</>, or

simply unset all localerelated variables.

simply unset all locale-related variables.

</para>

<para>

Note that the locale behavior is determined by the environment

variables seen by the server, not by the environment of any client.

Therefore, be careful to set these variables before starting the

postmaster.

Note that the locale behavior of the server is determined by the

environment variables seen by the server, not by the environment

of any client. Therefore, be careful to set these variables

before starting the server. A consequence of this is that if

client and server are set up to different locales, messages may

appear in different languages depending on where they originated.

</para>

<para>

The directory <filename>src/test/locale</> contains a test suite

for <productname>PostgreSQL</>'s locale support.

</para>

<para>

Client applications that handle server-side errors by parsing the

text of the error message will obviously have problems when the

server's messages are in a different language. If you create such

an application you need to devise a plan to cope with this

situation. The embedded SQL interface (<application>ecpg</>) is

also affected by this problem. It is currently recommended that

servers interfacing with <application>ecpg</> applications be

configured to send messages in English.

</para>

<para>

Maintaining catalogs of message translations requires the on-going

efforts of many volunteers that want to see

<productname>PostgreSQL</> speak their preferred language well.

If messages in your language is currently not available or fully

translated, your assistance would be appreciated. If you want to

help, refer to the <citetitle>Developer's Guide</> or write to the

developers' mailing list.

</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>