Non-System Locale Settings

Download PHP driver

This section only applies to Linux and macOS users, in particular those who deal with more than one locale in their php applications.

By default, Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server takes the LC_ALL environment variable defined in the system and overrides all other LC_xxx categories (perhaps except $LANG or $LANGUAGE under some circumstances), affecting the thousands separator, decimal point character, character set, month, day names, application messages like error messages, currency symbol, etc.

Starting with version 5.8.0, users may configure the localization settings using the php.ini file, as shown in the examples below.

Set locale info using the SQLSRV Driver

Add the following at the end of your php.ini file:

[sqlsrv]  
sqlsrv.SetLocaleInfo = <option>

Set locale info using the PDO_SQLSRV Driver

Add the following at the end of your php.ini file:

[pdo_sqlsrv]  
pdo_sqlsrv.set_locale_info = <option>

The option can be one of the following values:

Option	Description of behavior
0	The driver ignores the system locale settings.
1	The driver reads the LC_CTYPE variable.
2	The driver reads the LC_ALL variable (this is the default).

The LC_CTYPE category determines character handling rules, which govern the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data characters, the classification of characters, and the behavior of character classes. It controls recognition of upper and lower case, alphabetic and non-alphabetic characters, and so on.

Explanation

1. Option 0 -- use this when you do not want to alter the application locale.

2. Option 1 -- use this to set only the system value of LC_CTYPE without affecting the other LC_xxx categories.

3. Option 2 -- use LC_ALL to override all LC_xxx categories, affecting the php application and its extensions.

If the locale for any php script is not the same as the system ones, you may need to specify the locale in the php script(s) by calling the php built-in function setlocale.

For example, if the system default is en_US.UTF-8 but the php script uses de_DE.UTF-8, then call the php function setlocale() appropriately.

For Option 2, indicate the desired locale in your php scripts only if it is different from the LC_ALL variable.

Note

If nothing is defined in php.ini, the current default is to override all the other locale settings based on LC_ALL, which will be deprecated. In the near future, the default will be to ignore the system locale settings. Thus, users will need to modify the php.ini file accordingly if they wish to keep the current behavior.

If both sqlsrv and pdo_sqlsrv drivers are enabled, setting different options for the two drivers is not recommended.