Fix 'unsupported locale setting' in python or how to reconfigure your locale in linux.md

Say you're writing an API and you wanted to set your locale per region. You initialized everything in your python script but got an error saying unsupported locale setting

Or maybe you know how to install a locale but you gotta do it in your pipeline script, and you're wandering if there's any cli alternative to dpkg-reconfigure locales

Well, you're at the right place my friend.

To start off with the python thing, unsupported locale setting means that locale you're trying to use isn't installed.

To verify, say you wanna use, en_US.utf8 in your code

Type in locale -a in your terminal

if you see something like this that means it's not installed.

To do so, type in,

echo "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8" | sudo tee -a /etc/locale.gen

Now, install it by doing

sudo locale-gen en_US.utf8

And, you're done.

One Liner

This one-liner is pretty useful and could also be used in pipelines.

echo "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8" | sudo tee -a /etc/locale.gen; sudo locale-gen en_US.utf8

If you want to set that as your default locale do,

sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

You can also add other directives like LC_TIME,LC_ALL etc

Exit from your shell and open a new terminal: verify by typing locale

You'll see something like this,

If you think you wanna set a different locale as default repeat the process.

To manually set the default locale,

Edit the file /etc/default/locale and append your desired directives like below,

In your pipeline, do sudo locale-gen en_US.utf8 if already setup or just use the one-liner to configure your locale without dpkg's Gui intervention

Note:

	1. when doing manually make sure that your locale is installed and configured otherwise it might cause issues.
	2. LANG is the main thing you wanna set.
	3. It's important that you change your shell or signout or reboot for the default locale to reflect.
	4. In your pipeline script, if you're setting a said locale to default then execute other dependent programs or scripts in a new ssh directive.