---
name: "SDL_GetPreferredLocales"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "libsdl3-doc"
version: "3.2.10+ds-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/SDL_GetPreferredLocales"
---

# SDL\_GetPreferredLocales(3)

Report the user's preferred locale.

## NAME

SDL\_GetPreferredLocales - Report the user's preferred locale.

## HEADER FILE

Defined in SDL3/SDL\_locale.h

## SYNOPSIS

```
#include "SDL3/SDL.h"
```

**SDL\_Locale \*\* SDL\_GetPreferredLocales(int \*count);**

## DESCRIPTION

Returned language strings are in the format xx, where 'xx' is an ISO-639 language specifier (such as "en" for English, "de" for German, etc). Country strings are in the format YY, where "YY" is an ISO-3166 country code (such as "US" for the United States, "CA" for Canada, etc). Country might be NULL if there's no specific guidance on them (so you might get { "en", "US" } for American English, but { "en", NULL } means "English language, generically"). Language strings are never NULL, except to terminate the array.

Please note that not all of these strings are 2 characters; some are three or more.

The returned list of locales are in the order of the user's preference. For example, a German citizen that is fluent in US English and knows enough Japanese to navigate around Tokyo might have a list like: { "de", "en\_US", "jp", NULL }. Someone from England might prefer British English (where "color" is spelled "colour", etc), but will settle for anything like it: { "en\_GB", "en", NULL }.

This function returns NULL on error, including when the platform does not supply this information at all.

This might be a "slow" call that has to query the operating system. It's best to ask for this once and save the results. However, this list can change, usually because the user has changed a system preference outside of your program; SDL will send an

**SDL\_EVENT\_LOCALE\_CHANGED**\
  event in this case, if possible, and you can call this function again to get an updated copy of preferred locales.

## FUNCTION PARAMETERS

- *count*

  a pointer filled in with the number of locales returned, may be NULL.

## RETURN VALUE

( **SDL\_Locale** *) Returns a NULL terminated array of locale* pointers, or NULL on failure; call  **SDL\_GetError** () for more information. This is a single allocation that should be freed with

**SDL\_free** () when it is no longer needed.

## AVAILABILITY

This function is available since SDL 3.2.0.