locale(3pm)

NAME
locale - Perl pragma to use or avoid POSIX locales for built-in operations

SYNOPSIS
 my @x1 = sort @y;      # Native-platform/Unicode code point sort order
 {
     use locale;
     my @x2 = sort @y;  # Locale-defined sort order
 }
 my @x3 = sort @y;      # Native-platform/Unicode code point sort order
                        # again

 # Parameters to the pragma are to work around deficiencies in locale
 # handling that have since been fixed, and hence these are likely no
 # longer useful
 use locale qw(:ctype :collate);    # Only use the locale for character
                                    # classification (\w, \d, etc.), and
                                    # for string comparison operations
                                    # like '$a le $b' and sorting.
 use locale ':not_characters';      # Use the locale for everything but
                                    # character classification and string
                                    # comparison operations

 use locale ':!numeric';            # Use the locale for everything but
                                    # numeric-related operations
 use locale ':not_numeric';         # Same

 no locale;             # Turn off locale handling for the remainder of
                        # the scope.

DESCRIPTION
This pragma tells the compiler to enable (or disable) the use of POSIX locales for built-in operations (for example, "LC_CTYPE" for regular expressions, "LC_COLLATE" for string comparison, and "LC_NUMERIC" for number formatting). Each "use locale" or "no locale" affects statements to the end of the enclosing BLOCK.

The pragma is documented as part of perllocale.