How to "unlocalize" bash script output

Question

I have a problem with localized bash output. Say, I have to run some script on two different machines and then compare its output. It could of be done with grep easily, but one of the machines is localized to give bash output in russian. So "Apr" becomes "Апр" and otherwise exactly same strings turn different.

I don't want to mess with localization directly, as it might be useful in general; but it would be nice to run one particular script completely unlocalized.

The question is, how can I do that?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 14 '13 at 11:30

2

afaik you can't. But what you can do is to set the LANG variable in your script to the locale you want. I think it's a good idea to use the POSIX default locale:

export LANG=C

answered May 14 '13 at 11:30

Pascal Schmiel

1,738
12
17

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 14 '13 at 11:31

2

Set the required LC_* vars accordingly.

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

would set the output of all programs within these scripts to en_US.utf-8.

Or you could even use the "default" locale named C.

answered May 14 '13 at 11:31

Sven

98,649
14
180
226

Yes, I've just checked, it works great with C, thanks! – akalenuk May 14 '13 at 12:09

How to "unlocalize" bash script output

2 Answers2