Locale settings for macOS: what changed

Revision 0 to 1. Removed lines have a minus sign; added lines have a plus sign.

Title: Locale settings for macOS

New		Line
1	+	(macOS only)
2	+
3	+	In macOS, like on other Unix platforms, the RTL does not load the locale settings (date & time separator, currency symbol, etc) by default. They can be initialised in three ways.
4	+
5	+	> Warning: Adding both iosxlocale and clocale to the Uses clause will cause the second in line to overwrite the settings set by the first one.
6	+
7	+	## Automatic initialisation based on the System Preferences settings
8	+
9	+	In FPC 2.7.1 and later, adding the iosxlocale unit to the uses clause will initialise the locale settings using the settings from the System Preferences. This unit is not available in older versions of FPC.
10	+
11	+	## Automatic initialisation based on the settings in the Unix layer
12	+
13	+	Adding the clocale unit to the uses clause will cause the locale settings to be initialised using the configuration set at the Unix layer of macOS (based on the LANG and related environment variables). This unit is also available on other Unix-like platforms.
14	+
15	+	The macOS `locale` command line utility available since macOS 10.4 (Tiger) will reveal your locale settings. For example, open a Terminal and type:
16	+
17	+	```text
18	+	$ locale
19	+	LANG="en_AU.UTF-8"
20	+	LC_COLLATE="en_AU.UTF-8"
21	+	LC_CTYPE="en_AU.UTF-8"
22	+	LC_MESSAGES="en_AU.UTF-8"
23	+	LC_MONETARY="en_AU.UTF-8"
24	+	LC_NUMERIC="en_AU.UTF-8"
25	+	LC_TIME="en_AU.UTF-8"
26	+	LC_ALL=
27	+	```
28	+
29	+	## Manual initialisation
30	+
31	+	- Hardcoded:
32	+
33	+	``` pascal
34	+
35	+	// use in initialization or in onCreate of the main form
36	+	DateSeparator := '.';
37	+	ShortDateFormat := 'dd.mm.yyyy';
38	+	LongDateFormat := 'd. mmmm yyyy';
39	+	```
40	+
41	+	Source: [Lazarus Form post](http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=9566.0)
42	+
43	+	- Partially replicating the functionality of the iosxlocale unit:
44	+
45	+	``` pascal
46	+
47	+
48	+	uses
49	+	MacOSAll, CocoaUtils;
50	+
51	+	var
52	+	theFormatString: string;
53	+	theFormatter: CFDateFormatterRef;
54	+
55	+	procedure GetMacDateFormats;
56	+	begin
57	+	theFormatter := CFDateFormatterCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, CFLocaleCopyCurrent, kCFDateFormatterMediumStyle, kCFDateFormatterNoStyle);
58	+	theFormatString := CFStringToStr(CFDateFormatterGetFormat(theFormatter));
59	+	if pos('.', theFormatString) > 0 then
60	+	DefaultFormatSettings.DateSeparator := '.'
61	+	else if pos('/', theFormatString) > 0 then
62	+	DefaultFormatSettings.DateSeparator := '/'
63	+	else if pos('-', theFormatString) > 0 then
64	+	DefaultFormatSettings.DateSeparator := '-';
65	+	DefaultFormatSettings.ShortDateFormat := theFormatString;
66	+	CFRelease(theFormatter);
67	+	theFormatter := CFDateFormatterCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, CFLocaleCopyCurrent, kCFDateFormatterLongStyle, kCFDateFormatterNoStyle);
68	+	theFormatString := CFStringToStr(CFDateFormatterGetFormat(theFormatter));
69	+	DefaultFormatSettings.LongDateFormat := theFormatString;
70	+	CFRelease(theFormatter);
71	+	end;
72	+	```
73	+
74	+	If the procedure GetMacDateFormats is called in the beginning of the program's main unit the "International" settings of systems preferences are used.
75	+
76	+	---
77	+	From the Free Pascal wiki, page "Locale settings for macOS", as it stood on 2020-06-02 after a change by Trev, out of the wiki's dump of 2024-05-26. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's [[Licensing]] page. If you have concerns about this material, [message the admin](/wiki-contact).
78	+	Category: Code Snippets
79	+	Category: macOS

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