Locale naming conventions

The setlocale() library function that selects the active locale maps the descriptive locale name into the name of the locale object before loading the locale and making it accessible.

<Language>-<Territory>.<Codeset>

Language

is a two-letter uppercase abbreviation for the language name. The abbreviations come from the ISO 639 standard.

Territory

is a two-letter uppercase abbreviation for the territory name. The abbreviation comes from the ISO 3166 standard.

Codeset

is the name registered by the MIT X Consortium that identifies the registration authority that owns the specific encoding. A modifier may be added to the registered name but is not required. The modifier is of the form @codeset modifier and identifies the coded character set as defined by that registration authority.

The Codeset parts are optional. If they are not specified, Codeset defaults to IBM-nnn, where nnn is the default code page, which for EBCDIC locales is shown in Table 2 and for ASCII locales in Table 3. (The modifier portion defaults to nothing.)

Fr_BE.IBM-1148 maps to EDC$FBHO
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro maps to EDC@FBHO
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro maps to EDC3FBHO

Fr_BE.IBM-1148 maps to CEH$FBHO
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro maps to CEH@FBHO
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro maps to CEH3FBHO

Fr_BE.ISO8859-1 maps to CEJ$FBI1
Fr_BE.UTF-8 maps to CEJ$FBU8

Fr_BE.IBM-1148 maps to CEQ$FBHO
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro maps to CEQ@FBHO
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro maps to CEQ3FBHO

Fr_BE.ISO8859-1 maps to CEZ$FBI1
Fr_BE.UTF-8 maps to CEZ$FBU8

Fr_BE.IBM-1148 maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro

Fr_BE.IBM-1148 maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148.xplink
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro.xplink
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro.xplink

Fr_BE.ISO8859-1 maps to Fr_BE.ISO8859-1.xplink
Fr_BE.UTF-8 maps to Fr_BE.UTF-8.xplink

Fr_BE.IBM-1148 maps to FR_BE.IBM-1148.lp64
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148@euro.lp64
Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro maps to Fr_BE.IBM-1148@preeuro.lp64

Fr_BE.ISO8859-1 maps to Fr_BE.ISO8859-1.lp64
Fr_BE.UTF-8 maps to Fr_BE.UTF-8.lp64

EDC$LCNM TITLE 'LOCALE NAME CONVERSION TABLE'
EDC$LCNM CSECT
         EDCLOCNM TYPE=ENTRY,LOCALE='DA_DK',CODESET='IBM-1047',CODE='DA'
         EDCLOCNM TYPE=ENTRY,LOCALE='DE_BE',CODESET='IBM-1047',CODE='DB'
         EDCLOCNM TYPE=ENTRY,LOCALE='DE_CH',CODESET='IBM-1047',CODE='DC'
         EDCLOCNM TYPE=ENTRY,LOCALE='DE_DE',CODESET='IBM-1047',CODE='DD'
         EDCLOCNM TYPE=ENTRY,LOCALE='JA_JP',CODESET='IBM-939',CODE='EJ'
⋮
         EDCLOCNM TYPE=END
         END   EDC$LCNM

LOCALE specifies the name of Language-Territory, while CODE specifies the respective LT code.

You can customize this table by adding new LOCALE name mappings. z/OS XL C/C++ reserves alphabetic LT codes, but you can use codes containing numeric values for your own customized names.

The Language-Territory names and their mappings into LT codes that are provided are shown in Table 2 .

Table 3 shows the supported language-territory names and LT codes for ASCII locales. Note that ASCII locale names can also be coded <uppercase><lowercase>_<uppercase><uppercase>. For example, both en_US and En_US are valid ASCII locale names.

EDCUCSNM TITLE 'CODE SET NAME CONVERSION TABLE'
EDCUCSNM CSECT
         EDCCSNAM TYPE=ENTRY,CODESET='IBM-037',CODE='EA'
         EDCCSNAM TYPE=ENTRY,CODESET='IBM-273',CODE='EB'
         EDCCSNAM TYPE=ENTRY,CODESET='IBM-274',CODE='EC'
         EDCCSNAM TYPE=ENTRY,CODESET='IBM-277',CODE='ED'
         EDCCSNAM TYPE=ENTRY,CODESET='IBM-278',CODE='EE'
         ⋮
         EDCCSNAM TYPE=END
         END   EDCUCSNM

CODESET specifies the name Codeset; CODE specifies the respective CC code.

You can customize this table by adding new CODESET names. The alphabetic codes in the first byte of each CC name are reserved by IBM for future use, but you can use codes starting with numeric values for your own customized names.

The EDCLOC generated locales are not supported in AMODE 64 applications.

You can use the C macros in Table 5, which are defined in the locale.h header file, as synonyms for these special locale names. These macros can only be used for EBCDIC locales. The <prefix> in the Compiled locale column is EDC for non-XPLINK locales and CEH for XPLINK locales. The C macros for the locales which list a prefix in the Compiled locales column, are not defined for AMODE 64 compilations.

The predefined name for the built-in locale in the old format is S370.

The rest of the special names refer to the EBCDIC locale objects whose names are built by prepending the letters EDC$ for non-XPLINK locales or CEH$ for XPLINK locales to the special name, as for EDC$FRAN.