The LocaleObject data type acts as a logical instance of a specific locale. A LocaleObject parameter is passed to a number of functions in order to identify the locale whose information is being requested.

The UniCreateLocaleObject function is used to initialize a LocaleObject which refers to the specified locale. The locale can be identified in one of the following ways:

• A UniChar string representing the human-readable locale name (such as "en_US", "de_DE_EURO", "posix", etc.).
• A LocaleToken, which is an integer value used as a unique symbolic identifier for each locale.
• A NULL pointer will create a LocaleObject for the generic "univ" locale.
• An empty string (either char or UniChar) creates a LocaleObject based on the locale defined by current environment variables. (See the next section for details.)

Note: Note that, in the event that a specified locale name applies to both a user locale and a system locale, ULS will always give precedence to the user locale.

If the desired locale name and/or LocaleToken is unknown, one or the other may be obtained in various ways:

• The UniQueryLocaleList function can be used to query the locale names of all system and/or user locales.
• The UniMapCtryToLocale function returns the locale name corresponding to the specified country code.
• If the locale name is known, UniLocaleStrToToken can be used to return the corresponding LocaleToken.
• If the LocaleToken is known, UniLocaleTokenToStr can be used to return the corresponding locale name.

In addition, once you have the LocaleObject for a locale, you can retrieve its corresponding locale name or LocaleToken at any subsequent time using UniQueryLocaleObject.

A LocaleObject should be freed using UniFreeLocaleObject once it is no longer needed.