---
name: "mklocale"
section: "1"
platform: "openbsd"
package: "man"
version: "8.0-current-20261101"
release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)"
platforms: ["openbsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mklocale"
---

# mklocale(1)

make LC\_CTYPE locale files

## NAME

**mklocale** – make LC\_CTYPE locale files

## SYNOPSIS

**mklocale** \[**-d**\] \[*src-file*\] *language/LC\_CTYPE*

**mklocale** \[**-d**\] **-o** *language/LC\_CTYPE* *src-file*

## DESCRIPTION

The **mklocale** utility reads an LC\_CTYPE source file from standard input and produces an LC\_CTYPE binary file on standard output suitable for placement in */usr/share/locale/language/LC\_CTYPE*.

The format of *src-file* is quite simple: it consists of a series of lines which start with a keyword and have associated data following. C-style comments are used to place comments in the file.

The following options are available:

- **-d**

  Turns on debugging messages.

- **-o**

  Specify an output file.

Besides the keywords which will be listed below, the following are valid tokens in *src-file*:

- RUNE

  A RUNE may be any of the following:

  - *'x'*

    The ASCII character *x*.

  - *'\\x'*

    The ANSI C character *\\x* where *\\x* is one of \\a, \\b, \\f, \\n, \\r, \\t, or \\v.

  - *0x\[0-9a-z\]\**

    A hexadecimal number representing a rune code.

  - *0\[0-7\]\**

    An octal number representing a rune code.

  - *\[1-9\]\[0-9\]\**

    A decimal number representing a rune code.

- STRING

  A string enclosed in double quotes (").

- THRU

  Either ‘...’ or ‘-’. Used to indicate ranges.

- *literal*

  The follow characters are taken literally:

  - ( \[

    Used to start a mapping. All are equivalent.

  - ) \]

    Used to end a mapping. All are equivalent.

  - :

    Used as a delimiter in mappings.

Key words which should only appear once are:

- ENCODING

  Followed by a STRING which indicates the encoding mechanism to be used for this locale. The current encodings are:

  - NONE

    No translation and the default.

  - UTF2

    Universal character set Transformation Format adopted from Plan 9 from Bell Labs.

  - EUC

    EUC encoding as used by several vendors of UNIX systems.

- VARIABLE

  This keyword must be followed by one or more tab or space characters, after which encoding specific data is placed. Currently only the EUC encoding requires variable data.

- INVALID

  A single RUNE follows and is used as the invalid rune for this locale.

The following keywords may appear multiple times and have the following format for data:

- ⟨RUNE1 RUNE2⟩

  RUNE1 is mapped to RUNE2.

- ⟨RUNE1 THRU RUNEn: RUNE2⟩

  Runes RUNE1 through RUNEn are mapped to RUNE2 through RUNE2

- MAPLOWER

  Defines the tolower mappings. RUNE2 is the lower case representation of RUNE1.

- MAPUPPER

  Defines the toupper mappings. RUNE2 is the upper case representation of RUNE1.

- TODIGIT

  Defines a map from runes to their digit value. RUNE2 is the integer value represented by RUNE1. For example, the ASCII character ‘0’ would map to the decimal value 0. On OpenBSD, this information is ignored and not put into the binary output file.

The following keywords may appear multiple times and have the following format for data:

- RUNE

  This rune has the property defined by the keyword.

- RUNE1 THRU RUNEn

  All the runes between and including RUNE1 and RUNEn have the property defined by the keyword.

- ALPHA

  Defines runes which are alphabetic, printable, and graphic.

- CONTROL

  Defines runes which are control characters.

- DIGIT

  Defines runes which are decimal digits, printable, and graphic.

- GRAPH

  Defines runes which are graphic and printable.

- LOWER

  Defines runes which are lower case, printable, and graphic.

- PUNCT

  Defines runes which are punctuation, printable, and graphic.

- SPACE

  Defines runes which are spaces.

- UPPER

  Defines runes which are upper case, printable, and graphic.

- XDIGIT

  Defines runes which are hexadecimal digits, printable, and graphic.

- BLANK

  Defines runes which are blank.

- PRINT

  Defines runes which are printable.

- IDEOGRAM

  Defines runes which are ideograms, printable, and graphic.

- SPECIAL

  Defines runes which are special characters, printable, and graphic.

- PHONOGRAM

  Defines runes which are phonograms, printable, and graphic.

- SWIDTHn

  Defines runes with specific glyph width. *n* takes 0 to 3.

- CHARSET

  Controls character set for subsequent runes.

## SEE ALSO

[setlocale(3)](/setlocale/3.md)

## HISTORY

The **mklocale** utility first appeared in 4.4BSD.

## BUGS

The **mklocale** utility is overly simplistic.

We should switch to **localedef** and its file format, which is more standard.