base (version 3.4.1)

Sys.localeconv: Find Details of the Numerical and Monetary Representations in the Current Locale

Description

Get details of the numerical and monetary representations in the current locale.

Usage

Sys.localeconv()

Value

A character vector with 18 named components. See your ISO C documentation for details of the meaning.

It is possible to compile R without support for locales, in which case the value will be NULL.

Details

Normally R is run without looking at the value of LC_NUMERIC, so the decimal point remains '.'. So the first three of these components will only be useful if you have set the locale category LC_NUMERIC using Sys.setlocale in the current R session (when R may not work correctly).

The monetary components will only be set to non-default values (see the ‘Examples’ section if the LC_MONETARY category is set. It often is not set: set the examples for how to trigger setting it.

See Also

Sys.setlocale for ways to set locales.

Examples

Sys.localeconv()
## The results in the C locale are
##    decimal_point     thousands_sep          grouping   int_curr_symbol
##              "."                ""                ""                ""
##  currency_symbol mon_decimal_point mon_thousands_sep      mon_grouping
##               ""                ""                ""                ""
##    positive_sign     negative_sign   int_frac_digits       frac_digits
##               ""                ""             "127"             "127"
##    p_cs_precedes    p_sep_by_space     n_cs_precedes    n_sep_by_space
##            "127"             "127"             "127"             "127"
##      p_sign_posn       n_sign_posn
##            "127"             "127"

## Now try your default locale (which might be "C").
old <- Sys.getlocale()
## The category may not be set:
## the following may do so, but it might not be supported.
Sys.setlocale("LC_MONETARY", locale = "")
Sys.localeconv()
## or set an appropriate value yourself, e.g.
Sys.setlocale("LC_MONETARY", "de_AT")
Sys.localeconv()
Sys.setlocale(locale = old)

read.table("foo", dec=Sys.localeconv()["decimal_point"])