Changing the Locale

It is not recommended that programs change the locale used by the Java virtual machine, since doing so may affect other Java programs that are running. But if you want to experiment, you can do this:

Locale.setDefault( Locale newLocale )

Here are some Locale constants to use: CANADA , CHINA , FRANCE , GERMANY , UK , and US. For others, look in the Java documentation. This program should produce the same output no matter where it is run:

import java.text.*;
import java.util.Locale;

class IODemoGermany
{
  public static void main ( String[] args )
  {
    Integer i = new Integer( 7654321 );
    Double  d = new Double ( 11000.0008 );
    
    Locale.setDefault( Locale.GERMANY );
    DecimalFormat numform = new DecimalFormat(); 
    
    System.out.println( "Default Locale = " + Locale.getDefault() );    
    System.out.println( "integer = " + numform.format(i) + " double = " + numform.format(d) );
  }
}

The default locale remains set to the new locale (GERMANY in the above program) only as long as the Java virutal machine is running. When it starts up again (perhaps when you run another program) it will use the original default locale. To make a permanent change to the default locale you need to change some operating system parameters. This is not a good idea.