setlocale - PHP code example

PHP Function SetLocale

PHP provides a variety of methods for localizing your code. One of them is the php function setlocale, which allows you to change the locale settings, which include language, monetary, and time information specific for a geographical region.

The parameter of setlocale() can be a string or an array. If it is an array, then each element is tried to be set as the new locale until success, which is useful if a region is known under different names on different systems. Alternatively, you can use the LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, and LC_TIME macros to specify only one category.

It is important to note that if the locales setting in your PHP configuration differ from what you have set up, this may cause issues with your application's functionality. This is because PHP uses the system locale to determine what strings it will recognize, and those values may be different from the ones you have specified in your config file.

Another thing to be aware of is that setlocale only changes the locale for all categories, not individual ones. If you want to change the time formatting for a particular category, you should instead use the date() or DateTime::format functions in PHP (requires Intl extension). The strftime and gmstrftime functions are deprecated in PHP 8.1 and later and will be removed in PHP 9.0. For a more robust and locale-aware time formatting solution, consider using the IntlDateFormatter::format method instead. See this article for more details.

setlocale example

return $this;
    }

    /** * Returns a PHP representation of a given value. * * @return $this */
    public function repr(mixed $value): static
    {
        if (\is_int($value) || \is_float($value)) {
            if (false !== $locale = setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 0)) {
                setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 'C');
            }

            $this->raw($value);

            if (false !== $locale) {
                setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, $locale);
            }
        } elseif (null === $value) {
            $this->raw('null');
        } elseif (\is_bool($value)) {

return $this;
    }

    /** * Returns a PHP representation of a given value. * * @return $this */
    public function repr($value)
    {
        if (\is_int($value) || \is_float($value)) {
            if (false !== $locale = setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, '0')) {
                setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 'C');
            }

            $this->raw(var_export($value, true));

            if (false !== $locale) {
                setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, $locale);
            }
        } elseif (null === $value) {
            $this->raw('null');
        } elseif (\is_bool($value)) {

    /** * Dumps a Data object. * * @param callable|resource|string|true|null $output A line dumper callable, an opened stream, an output path or true to return the dump * * @return string|null The dump as string when $output is true */
    public function dump(Data $data, $output = null): ?string
    {
        if ($locale = $this->flags & (self::DUMP_COMMA_SEPARATOR | self::DUMP_TRAILING_COMMA) ? setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 0) : null) {
            setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 'C');
        }

        if ($returnDump = true === $output) {
            $output = fopen('php://memory', 'r+');
        }
        if ($output) {
            $prevOutput = $this->setOutput($output);
        }
        try {
            $data->dump($this);

// Detect if we're loaded by an actual run of phpunit if (!defined('PHPUNIT_COMPOSER_INSTALL') && !class_exists(\PHPUnit\TextUI\Command::class, false)) {
    return;
}

if (isset($fileIdentifier)) {
    unset($GLOBALS['__composer_autoload_files'][$fileIdentifier]);
}

// Enforce a consistent locale setlocale(\LC_ALL, 'C');

if (class_exists(Deprecation::class)) {
    Deprecation::withoutDeduplication();

    if (\PHP_VERSION_ID < 80000) {
        // Ignore deprecations about the annotation mapping driver when it's not possible to move to the attribute driver yet         Deprecation::ignoreDeprecations('https://github.com/doctrine/orm/issues/10098');
    }
}

if (!class_exists(AnnotationRegistry::class, false) && class_exists(AnnotationRegistry::class)) {

ini_set('session.use_only_cookies', '1');
      ini_set('session.use_trans_sid', '0');
      // Don't send HTTP headers using PHP's session handler.       // Send an empty string to disable the cache limiter.       ini_set('session.cache_limiter', '');
      // Use httponly session cookies.       ini_set('session.cookie_httponly', '1');
    }

    // Set sane locale settings, to ensure consistent string, dates, times and     // numbers handling.     setlocale(LC_ALL, 'C');

    // Set appropriate configuration for multi-byte strings.     mb_internal_encoding('utf-8');
    mb_language('uni');

    // Indicate that code is operating in a test child site.     if (!defined('DRUPAL_TEST_IN_CHILD_SITE')) {
      if ($test_prefix = drupal_valid_test_ua()) {
        $test_db = new TestDatabase($test_prefix);
        // Only code that interfaces directly with tests should rely on this         // constant; e.g., the error/exception handler conditionally adds further

    function encodeUnsafe($var)
    {
        _deprecated_function( __METHOD__, '5.3.0', 'The PHP native JSON extension' );

        // see bug #16908 - regarding numeric locale printing         $lc = setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, 0);
        setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, 'C');
        $ret = $this->_encode($var);
        setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, $lc);
        return $ret;

    }
    /** * PRIVATE CODE that does the work of encodes an arbitrary variable into JSON format * * @deprecated 5.3.0 Use the PHP native JSON extension instead. * * @param mixed $var any number, boolean, string, array, or object to be encoded. * see argument 1 to Services_JSON() above for array-parsing behavior. * if var is a string, note that encode() always expects it * to be in ASCII or UTF-8 format! * * @return mixed JSON string representation of input var or an error if a problem occurs * @access public */

// Do class loader population. $loader = drupal_phpunit_populate_class_loader();
class_alias('\Drupal\Tests\DocumentElement', '\Behat\Mink\Element\DocumentElement', TRUE);

ClassWriter::mutateTestBase($loader);

// Set sane locale settings, to ensure consistent string, dates, times and // numbers handling. // @see \Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel::bootEnvironment() setlocale(LC_ALL, 'C');

// Set appropriate configuration for multi-byte strings. mb_internal_encoding('utf-8');
mb_language('uni');

// Set the default timezone. While this doesn't cause any tests to fail, PHP // complains if 'date.timezone' is not set in php.ini. The Australia/Sydney // timezone is chosen so all tests are run using an edge case scenario (UTC+10 // and DST). This choice is made to prevent timezone related regressions and // reduce the fragility of the testing system in general. date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Sydney');

    public function testDump($yaml, $value, $parseFlags = 0)
    {
        $this->assertEquals($yaml, Inline::dump($value), sprintf('::dump() converts a PHP structure to an inline YAML (%s)', $yaml));

        $this->assertSame($value, Inline::parse(Inline::dump($value), $parseFlags), 'check consistency');
    }

    public function testDumpNumericValueWithLocale()
    {
        $locale = setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 0);
        if (false === $locale) {
            $this->markTestSkipped('Your platform does not support locales.');
        }

        try {
            $requiredLocales = ['fr_FR.UTF-8', 'fr_FR.UTF8', 'fr_FR.utf-8', 'fr_FR.utf8', 'French_France.1252'];
            if (false === setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, $requiredLocales)) {
                $this->markTestSkipped('Could not set any of required locales: '.implode(', ', $requiredLocales));
            }

            $this->assertEquals('1.2', Inline::dump(1.2));

case \is_array($value):
                return self::dumpArray($value, $flags);
            case null === $value:
                return self::dumpNull($flags);
            case true === $value:
                return 'true';
            case false === $value:
                return 'false';
            case \is_int($value):
                return $value;
            case is_numeric($value) && false === strpbrk($value, "\f\n\r\t\v"):
                $locale = setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 0);
                if (false !== $locale) {
                    setlocale(\LC_NUMERIC, 'C');
                }
                if (\is_float($value)) {
                    $repr = (string) $value;
                    if (is_infinite($value)) {
                        $repr = str_ireplace('INF', '.Inf', $repr);
                    } elseif (floor($value) == $value && $repr == $value) {
                        // Preserve float data type since storing a whole number will result in integer value.                         if (!str_contains($repr, 'E')) {
                            $repr = $repr.'.0';
                        }

  public function createDatabase($database) {
    // Escape the database name.     $database = Database::getConnection()->escapeDatabase($database);
    $db_created = FALSE;

    // Try to determine the proper locales for character classification and     // collation. If we could determine locales other than 'en_US', try creating     // the database with these first.     $ctype = setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 0);
    $collate = setlocale(LC_COLLATE, 0);
    if ($ctype && $collate) {
      try {
        $this->connection->exec("CREATE DATABASE $database WITH TEMPLATE template0 ENCODING='UTF8' LC_CTYPE='$ctype.UTF-8' LC_COLLATE='$collate.UTF-8'");
        $db_created = TRUE;
      }
      catch (\Exception $e) {
        // It might be that the server is remote and does not support the         // locale and collation of the webserver, so we will try again.       }
    }

    public static function getEnvironment()
    {
        if (self::$_environment !== null) {
            return self::$_environment;
        }

        $language      = setlocale(LC_ALL, 0);
        $languages     = explode(';', $language);
        $languagearray = array();

        foreach ($languages as $locale) {
            if (strpos($locale, '=') !== false) {
                $language = substr($locale, strpos($locale, '='));
                $language = substr($language, 1);
            }

            if ($language !== 'C') {
                if (strpos($language, '.') !== false) {

use Symfony\Component\Form\Exception\TransformationFailedException;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\DataTransformer\MoneyToLocalizedStringTransformer;
use Symfony\Component\Intl\Util\IntlTestHelper;

class MoneyToLocalizedStringTransformerTest extends TestCase
{
    private string|false $previousLocale;
    private string $defaultLocale;

    protected function setUp(): void
    {
        $this->previousLocale = setlocale(\LC_ALL, '0');
        $this->defaultLocale = \Locale::getDefault();
    }

    protected function tearDown(): void
    {
        setlocale(\LC_ALL, $this->previousLocale);
        \Locale::setDefault($this->defaultLocale);
    }

    public function testTransform()
    {

// Create a node with a very simple body.     $this->drupalCreateNode(['body' => [['value' => 'tapir']]]);
    // Update the search index.     $this->nodeSearchPlugin->updateIndex();
  }

  /** * Verify that search works with a numeric locale set. */
  public function testSearchWithNumericLocale() {
    // French decimal point is comma.     setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, 'fr_FR');
    $this->nodeSearchPlugin->setSearch('tapir', [], []);
    // The call to execute will throw an exception if a float in the wrong     // format is passed in the query to the database, so an assertion is not     // necessary here.     $this->nodeSearchPlugin->execute();
  }

}