LOCALE-GEN(8)						      System Manager's Manual						     LOCALE-GEN(8)

NAME

       locale-gen - compile a list of locale definition files

SYNOPSIS

       locale-gen [options] [locale] [language] ...

DESCRIPTION

       Compiled  locale  files	take about 50MB of disk space, and most users only need few locales.  In order to save disk space, compiled locale
       files are not distributed in the locales package, but selected locales are automatically generated when this package is installed  by  run-
       ning the locale-gen program.

       If  a  list of languages and/or locales is specified as arguments, then locale-gen only generates these particular locales and adds the new
       ones to /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local.  Otherwise it generates all supported locales.

       Locale data files can be stored either in a single archive file, /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive, or in a deep tree where  individual  files
       are stored under /usr/lib/locale/<locale_name>/LC_*.  But unlike the locales package, compiled locale definitions are not removed when run-
       ning locale-gen, and locales are compiled again only if locale source files have changed.

OPTIONS

       These options override settings found in /etc/belocs/locale-gen.conf.

       --help Display an help message and exit.

       --purge
	      Remove all existing locales before processing.

       --no-purge
	      Do not remove existing locales before processing.

       --archive
	      When this option is set, locale data are stored in a single archive /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive.

       --no-archive
	      When this option is set, locale data are stored in /usr/lib/locale/<locale_name>/LC_* files.  This is the default.

       --aliases=FILE
	      Locale aliases are read from FILE.

FILES

       /var/lib/locales/supported.d/*
	      List all locales to generate.  File format is similar to /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED.

       /etc/belocs/locale-gen.conf
	      Customize how compiled locale files are stored onto disk.

       /usr/lib/locale/<locale_name>/LC_*
	      Compiled locale data.

       /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
	      Generated archive containing compiled locale data, if --archive flag is set.

       /var/lib/belocs
	      Directory used to keep track of changes in locale source files.

SEE ALSO

       localedef(1), locale(1), locale-gen.conf(5).

AUTHOR

       The locale-gen program was originally written by Debian GNU libc maintainers, and has been improved by Denis  Barbier  <barbier@debian.org>
       for the belocs-locales-bin package.  This manual page has been rewritten from scratch to document the current behavior.

Debian GNU/Linux						    March 2005							     LOCALE-GEN(8)