change the UI lang when using postgresql psql.exe

Question

I have a PostgreSQL 8.4 database, installed with Japanese as the main language. I am connecting from an English Windows 7 client using psql.exe. Is there any way to change the UI of the messages shown to me (e.g. the help, column headers from the \l command, etc) to English?

I know that I can set the character encoding using \encoding, but I really want to change the UI language from ja_JP to en_US (or similar).

I can't see anything in the psql documentation. Any ideas?

In a Linux environment, this is controlled by environment variables on the client. If your OS is generally set to one language, psql should behave the same. Not sure why that doesn't work in your case. — Peter Eisentraut, Dec 25 '10 at 10:28
Delete or rename the locale folder. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/56811670/7818237 — Donald33 Nevermore, Aug 19 '21 at 01:09

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 19 '17 at 03:06

6

In Windows also, psql only looks at the LC_MESSAGES environment variable. Therefore this works...

set LC_MESSAGES=C
psql.exe

edited Dec 19 '17 at 03:06

xji

808

answered Apr 23 '11 at 02:52

brofield

201

Powershell version:
$env:LC_MESSAGES = 'C' – nudls00p Mar 30 '20 at 14:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 22 '22 at 12:08

I ran into the same problems. I tried to set locale properly during PostgreSQL installation, tried to change postgresql.conf but nothing helped to change the language in psql. Found out the UI language of psql.exe is controlled by environment variables in Windows. But set LC_MESSAGES=C modifies only current shell variable and it is saved temporarily, so as soon as you close the shell (or restart PC), your issue is back.

These 4 options change the UI language of psql.exe to English and make sure to keep this setting persistently to avoid returning of the issue:

Option 1: Open Command Prompt and run: setx LC_MESSAGES C. Difference between set and setx is explained here: https://superuser.com/a/916652/1741056
Option 2: Open Powershell run command: [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("LC_MESSAGES", "C", "User"). See reference here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_environment_variables?view=powershell-7.2#saving-environment-variables-with-setenvironmentvariable
Option 3: In Windows GUI follow this steps: System Properties -> Advanced -> Environment variables -> User variables -> New -> Name: LC_MESSAGES -> Value: C -> OK
Option 4 (not a pure way! - but is works): Rename this folder C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8\share\locale\ja (in case of Japan language and version 8 of PostgreSQL) to something different and restart shell. Here is the reference for this step https://stackoverflow.com/questions/191428/change-language-of-system-and-error-messages-in-postgresql/56811670#comment121662022_56811670

change the UI lang when using postgresql psql.exe

2 Answers2