Internationalization

The <locale> header contains the classes for localizing how time, dates, and currency are formatted, and also to provide localized rules for string comparisons and ordering.

Note

The C Runtime Library also has global functions to carry out localization. However, it is important in the following discussion that we distinguish between C functions and the C locale. The C locale is the default locale, including the rules for localization, used in C and C++ programs and it can be replaced with a locale for a country or culture. The C Runtime Library provides functions to change the locale, as does the C++ Standard Library.

Since the C++ Standard Library provides classes for localization, this means that you can create more than one object representing a locale. A locale object can be created in a function and can only be used there, or it can be applied globally to a thread and used only by code running on that thread. This is in contrast to the C localization functions...