I need to get a string like en_US
or es_ES
in iOS.
The obvious method is to use [NSLocale currentLocale]
and get the language info from there. However, that gives you the "region format" and not the actual device language, which means that if you have the device language in english but the region format as "spain", it'll erroneously report es_ES
.
If you need the device language you must do this instead:
[[NSLocale preferredLanguages] objectAtIndex:0]
However, that only gives you the language, so you get something like en
or es
, without the country code at the end.
How would I get the country code correctly, like Safari does?
Try with this code:
NSString *locale = [[NSLocale currentLocale] localeIdentifier];
NSRange startRange = [locale rangeOfString:@"_"];
NSString *result = [locale stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0, startRange.length+1) withString:[[NSLocale preferredLanguages] objectAtIndex:0]];
DebugLog(@"current locale: %@", result);
Ok, seeing getting the right info out of iOS is probably not possible, here's a hackish solution but which gives the output I needed. It's not complete and it won't give precise output in some cases (like for arabic), but it's the best I've been able to get.
const string lang = [[[NSLocale preferredLanguages] objectAtIndex:0] UTF8String];
// Search the language with country code in the langs map
static std::map<string, string> langMap;
static bool initialized = false;
if(!initialized) {
#define LANG(l, c) langMap.insert(std::make_pair(#l, #c))
LANG(en, en-us); LANG(es, es-es); LANG(fr, fr-fr); LANG(de, de-de);
LANG(ja, ja-jp); LANG(nl, nl-nl); LANG(it, it-it); LANG(pt, pt-br);
LANG(da, da-dk); LANG(fi, fi-fi); LANG(nb, nb-no); LANG(sv, sv-se);
LANG(ko, ko-kr); LANG(ru, ru-ru); LANG(pl, pl-pl); LANG(tr, tr-tr);
LANG(uk, uk-ua); LANG(hr, hr-hr); LANG(cs, cs-cz); LANG(el, el-gr);
LANG(he, he-il); LANG(ro, ro-ro); LANG(sk, sk-sk); LANG(th, th-th);
LANG(ca, ca-es); LANG(hu, hu-hu); LANG(vi, vi-vn);
LANG(zh-Hans, zh-cn); LANG(pt-PT, pt-pt); LANG(id, id); LANG(ms, ms);
LANG(zh-Hant, zh-tw); LANG(en-GB, en-gb); LANG(ar, ar);
#undef LANG
initialized = true;
}
map<string,string>::iterator it = langMap.find(lang);
if( it != langMap.end() ){
return it->second;
}
// Didn't find a country code, default to the lang name
return lang;
Check the below code:
NSArray *langs = [NSLocale preferredLanguages];
for (NSString *lang in langs) {
NSLog(@"%@: %@ %@",lang, [NSLocale canonicalLanguageIdentifierFromString:lang], [[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:lang] displayNameForKey:NSLocaleIdentifier value:lang]);
}
Swift
NSLocale.preferredLanguages()[0] as String
Output would be like
en-GB
Source
I am using this at the moment. I have run a few test cases and it seems ok, However I am not convinced that it is a robust solution. I am surprised not to find a clear answer to this simple problem. I would not recommend my solution but I hope it can generate discussion.
NSLocale *locale = [NSLocale currentLocale];
NSString *countryCode = [locale objectForKey: NSLocaleCountryCode];
NSString *language = [[NSLocale preferredLanguages] firstObject];
NSString *myLocale = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@_%@",language,countryCode];
NSLocale *userLocale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:myLocale];
NSDate* now = [NSDate date];
NSDateFormatter *formatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
NSString *dateFormat = [NSDateFormatter dateFormatFromTemplate:@"E MMM d yyyy HH:mm" options:0 locale:userLocale];
Simply do this:
NSString *language = [[NSLocale preferredLanguages] objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *locale = [[NSLocale currentLocale] objectForKey: NSLocaleCountryCode];
NSString *formattedStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@_%@",language, locale];
NSLog(@"%@", formattedStr); // Display en_US for example
An alternative would be to reconstruct the locale from the components of the current locale, swapping in the language that you want.
For example, to get the current locale but modified to use the language which UIKit is currently using to display the app:
let languageCode = Bundle.main.preferredLocalizations.first ?? "en"
var components = Locale.components(fromIdentifier: Locale.current.identifier)
components[NSLocale.Key.languageCode.rawValue] = languageCode
let locale = Locale(identifier: Locale.identifier(fromComponents: components))