In OS X Lion, LANG is not set to UTF-8, how to fix it?

Question

I try to setup postgress in OS X Lion, and find that is not correctly setup the LOCALE environment var.

This is what is set:

LANG=
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_ALL=

I expect something with UTF-8. This is a clean OS X Lion setup, with spanish language. I don't move anything.

I don't know how setup it to UTF-8.

In the terminal settings, is check UTF-8 and set LOCALE in open, despite that don't work.

Republicanize

That's odd. It should work in Terminal by default, assuming you're using the default shell (bash) and the default terminal settings profile (Basic). Note that if you alter the encoding or change "set locale environment variables" they only take effect in new terminals, not ones that are already open. – Stagner

I use zsh (using oh my zsh! installer), maybe is that? – Republicanize

Possibly. Try running zsh without any custom configuration to see if the problem goes away. Use Shell > New Command to run zsh --no-rcs and zsh --no-rcs --no-global-rcs to narrow down the problem. Also, try just running the locale command without a shell via New Command and see what it reports. – Stagner

@ChrisPage I had the exact same output as the OP, with those settings enables in the Terminal. I had to switch set locale environment variables off, restart the terminal and then switch it back on to get the right environment to show up. – Zincograph

There is a thorough answer to this question on Ask Different. – Ramakrishna

Answer 1

I noticed the exact same issue when logging onto servers running Red Hat from an OSX Lion machine.

Try adding or editing the ~/.profile file for it to correctly export your locale settings upon initiating a new session.

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

These two lines added to the file should suffice to set the locale [replace en_US for your desired locale, and check beforehand that it is indeed installed on your system (locale -a)].

After that, you can start a new session and check using locale:

$ locale

The following should be the output:

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"  
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"  

Sands

Also, I originally noticed the issue while using iTerm2. This workaround seems to work for both iTerm2 and Terminal. – Sands

Spent an hour looking a solution for this matter thanks a lot for posting this man. I can confirm it works on both Terminal and iTerm2. – Juliusjullundur

Thank you :) I hope this is easiest and the most stable fix for this locale issue. Been bothered by this for some time now, but could not easily grasp why all my nix boxes would suffer from a malfunction locale issue. – Brownson

thanks so much! after tons of searches, most of them direct me to the server i ssh to. this changes on Mac OSX really fix the problems. – Taproot

Is there a way to export global system language instead of hardcoded? I have ru_RU locale and maybe my project can clone some Latvian or Ukrainian user with other locale. I think that there is some variable in OS X that returns "ru_RU.UTF-8" or similar for other locales. – Regenerator

I have a .bash_profile on my home folder and .profile was not being sourced when .bash_profile was present. I needed to manually source .profile inside .bash_profile – Leslileslie

Here you can see how to choose this option for Mac's Terminal application. – Leaf

Amazing, that did it, just a note, once you use zsh, don't be dumb as me... the config there is ~/.zshrc... well now works like a charm – Roughish

This also files display of Unicode filenames in Midnight Commander – Larrigan

There is no reason to set both LANG and LC_ALL. Only LANG should be set. First, they both do the same - set default values for all locale variables (e.g. LC_TIME, LANGUAGE) - with LC_ALL having precedence over LANG. LANG is the one meant to be used in standard configuration, while LC_ALL is only for debugging purposes (as it overwrites everything else). Some reference – Thievery

@RobertKusznier Yes, only LANG should be set. However LANG and LC_ALL do not have the same effect . The value of LANG will be used only for unset LC_* variables. The value of LC_ALL on the other hand will override any other LC_* variables. The value of LC_ALL will be used wether the other variables are set or not. – Beamy

@StefanSchmidt True. – Thievery

Answer 2

I recently had the same issue on OS X Sierra with bash shell, and thanks to answers above I only had to edit the file

~/.bash_profile 

and append those lines

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

Sacculate

It really help. I don't have bash_profile and I have create it manually. And without put export to bash_profile, every time we reset terminal the language will rollback. – Desperation

Answer 3

if you have zsh installed you can also update ~/.zprofile with

if [[ -z "$LC_ALL" ]]; then
  export LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8'
fi

and check the output using the locale cmd as show above

❯ locale                                                                                                                                           
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

Acaulescent

For me, this was not an alternative solution but the only solution that worked. Also, I needed to restart my system afterwards to propagate the changes to my IDE. Thanks m8 :) – Trochanter

Answer 4

This is a headbreaker for a long time. I see now it's OSX.. i change it system-wide and it works perfect

When i add this the LANG in Centos6 and Fedora is also my preferred LANG. You can also "uncheck" export or set locale in terminal settings (OSX) /etc/profile

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

Perfidy

Answer 5

I had this issue with MacOS High Sierria.

You can set up locale as well as language to UTF-8 format using below command :

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

Now in order to check whether locale environment is updated use below command :

Locale

Zapata

How is this answer different comparing to the accepted one? – Brunelle

What is the purpose of the first pic? Isn't it the same as the last one? – Septemberseptembrist

Answer 6

if [[ -z "$LC_ALL" ]]; then
  export LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8'
fi

then check for locale, output should be :

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

Jarv