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localeconv: It is portable but ...

Together with the setlocale function the ISO C people invented the localeconv function. It is a masterpiece of poor design. It is expensive to use, not extendable, and not generally usable as it provides access to only LC_MONETARY and LC_NUMERIC related information. Nevertheless, if it is applicable to a given situation it should be used since it is very portable. The function strfmon formats monetary amounts according to the selected locale using this information.

struct lconv * localeconv (void)

Function

The localeconv function returns a pointer to a structure whose components contain information about how numeric and monetary values should be formatted in the current locale. You should not modify the structure or its contents. The structure might be overwritten by subsequent calls to localeconv, or by calls to setlocale, but no other function in the library overwrites this value.

struct lconv

Data Type

localeconv's return value is of this data type. Its elements are described in the following subsections.

If a member of the structure struct lconv has type char, and the value is CHAR_MAX, it means that the current locale has no value for that parameter.

• General Numeric: Parameters for formatting numbers and currency amounts.
• Currency Symbol: How to print the symbol that identifies an amount of money (e.g. $).
• Sign of Money Amount: How to print the (positive or negative) sign for a monetary amount, if one exists.