-
+
Localization>
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 other aspects.
with servers with or without locale support.
+ To enable messages translated to the user's preferred language,
+ the option must be used. This
+ option is independent of the other locale support.
+
+
The information about which particular cultural rules to use is
determined by standard environment variables. If you are getting
- LC_MESSAGES> only affects the messages that come from the
- operating system, not
PostgreSQL>.
+ Additionally, all of these specific variables and the
+ LANG> variable can be overridden with the
+ LC_ALL> environment variable.
+
+ Some message localization libraries also look at the environment
+ variable LANGUAGE 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
+ gettext>3>> manual
+ page, for more information.
+
+
+
If you want the system to behave as if it had no locale support,
use the special locale C> or POSIX>, or
- simply unset all locale related variables.
+ simply unset all locale-related variables.
- 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.
The directory src/test/locale> contains a test suite
for
PostgreSQL>'s locale support.
+
+ 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 (
ecpg>) is
+ also affected by this problem. It is currently recommended that
+ servers interfacing with
ecpg> applications be
+ configured to send messages in English.
+
+
+ Maintaining catalogs of message translations requires the on-going
+ efforts of many volunteers that want to see
+
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 Developer's Guide> or write to the
+ developers' mailing list.
+