How to change locale environment variable

environment-variableslocale

I have generated en_US.utf8, et_EE.iso88591 and ru_RU.utf8 localisation files. Now if I try to change any of the locale variables to a ru_RU.utf8 or en_US.utf8, then this does not have any effect:

# locale -a
C
en_US.utf8
et_EE
et_EE.iso88591
POSIX
ru_RU.utf8
# LC_TIME=ru_RU.utf8
# locale | grep LC_TIME
LC_TIME="et_EE.iso88591"
# LC_TIME="ru_RU.utf8"
# locale | grep LC_TIME
LC_TIME="et_EE.iso88591"
#

However, if I change the LANG= variable, then all other variables but LANGUAGE= and LC_ALL= take the value of the LANG= variable. Is there a way to modify each locale variable separately? In addition, am I correct that locale variables aren't regular shell variables, but more like parameters to locale utility?

Best Answer

You can set any locale category independently. LANG applies only to the categories that are not explicitly set.

LANG and LC_xxx are ordinary environment variables. They are not settings for the locale utility: the locale program isn't involved in any locale processing, it's just a small utility to report current and available locale settings.

When you write LC_TIME=ru_RU.utf8, this doesn't set an environment variable, only a shell variable. Shell variables are internal to the shell, they are not seen by other programs. Environment variables, on the other hand, are inherited by the programs that the shell starts. You need to export the variable to the environment as well:

$ LC_TIME=ru_RU.utf8
$ locale | grep LC_TIME
LC_TIME="et_EE.iso88591"
$ export LC_TIME
$ locale | grep LC_TIME
LC_TIME="ru_RU.utf8"

or directly

$ export LC_TIME=ru_RU.utf8
$ locale | grep LC_TIME
LC_TIME="ru_RU.utf8"
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