LOCALE Subcommand (SET command)

The LOCALE subcommand allows you to change the locale used for data analysis. By default, the locale is set to the computer’s system locale if possible. With the LOCALE subcommand, you can override the default behavior and process data files in other locales without changing your computer’s system or user locale.

  • The default locale is the current operating system locale.
  • The LOCALE subcommand persists. The next time that IBM® SPSS® Statistics is started on your computer, IBM SPSS Statistics will run in that locale.
  • The OSLOCALE keyword sets the locale to the operating system locale. The application gets this information from the operating system each time you start the application. This is the default.
  • If the locale ID does not match the system locale, not all output will be rendered correctly.
  • In code page mode, locale changes that also change the encoding can only be made when there are no open datasets. For information on code page mode and Unicode mode, see UNICODE Subcommand.
  • You can use SHOW LOCALE to view the current IBM SPSS Statistics locale.

Example

SET LOCALE='Japanese'.
  • When you are connecting to a server, the relevant locale ID is defined in the loclmap.xml file, which is located on the server computer. Check with your server administrator for available locale IDs.
  • Locale ID values of the general form Language_Country.codepage#, which were valid in previous releases, are not valid in release 16.0 or later. In most instances, the "Language" portion of the old locale specification should be a valid locale ID in release 16.0 or later. For example, instead of 'Japanese_Japan.932', you could specify simply 'Japanese'. For a complete list of names and aliases that can be used to specify locale, go to http://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets

Two-letter language abbreviations adhere to the ISO 639-1 standard: http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php

Two-letter country codes adhere to the ISO 3166 standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1

Example

SET LOCALE='ja_JP.Shift_JIS'
  • "ja" is the two-letter language code for Japanese.
  • "JP" is the two-letter country code for Japan.
  • "Shift_JIS" is the name of the character set.