OpenLocale

open a locale. (V38)

This function opens a named locale. Locales contain many parameters that an application needs to consider when being integrated into different languages, territories and customs. Using the information stored in a locale instead of hard-coding it into an application, lets the application dynamically adapt to the user's environment.

Locales originally come from disk files which are created by the user using the Locale preferences editor. Passing a NULL instead of a name causes this function to return the current default locale. This is what most applications will do.

Every locale specifies a language, and special language drivers must be loaded from disk depending on which language is being used. These files include for example:

name

the NULL-terminated name of the locale to open, or NULL to open the current default locale. This should generally be NULL. The name you supply must be a pathname leading to a locale preferences file. This is an IFF PREF file as saved by Locale prefs, that can contain both LCLE and CTRY chunks. See <prefs/locale.h> for definitions.

locale

a pointer to an initialized Locale structure, or NULL if the locale could not be loaded. In the case of a NULL return, the DOS IoErr() function can be called to obtain more information on the failure.

When passing a NULL name parameter to this function, you are guaranteed a valid return.

CloseLocale(), <libraries/locale.h>, <prefs/locale.h>