How to override the system locale on a single command?
When helping someone we often ask them to show the output of a command eg:
sudo fdisk -l | pastebinit
If the user is not using an English locale, the output may be in a foreign language:
Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 huvuden, 63 sektorer/spår, 91201 cylindrar, totalt 1465149168 sektor
This complicates support. How can one run a command with an override on the system locale to get English output?
The environment variables to override with the locale you wish to use are LANG
, LC_ALL
, and LANGUAGE
. Some apps will handle some of these differently, but generally just setting LANG
should work. You can run a command in the terminal with it, like LANG=es_ES locale
. The locale
command will show the current environment variable settings for your locale.