How does the locale setting LC_NUMERIC work in PostgreSQL?

Question

Could anybody give an insight on the locale and numeric types behaviour in PostgreSQL? We work with Italian locale. That is comma separation for decimal part. Setting in

Answer 1

I quote the manual:

lc_numeric (string)

Sets the locale to use for formatting numbers, for example with the to_char family of functions.

Concerns these type formatting functions. You should be able to reproduce the following demo:

SHOW lc_numeric;

de_AT.UTF-8

SELECT to_number('13,4','999D99')

13.4

SELECT to_char(13.4,'FM999D99')

13,4

SET lc_numeric = 'C';
SELECT to_number('13,4','999D99')

134

SELECT to_char(13.4,'FM999D99')

13.4

RESET lc_numeric;

Template patterns in the manual.

The format of numbers in SQL expressions does not change with locale settings. That would be madness.

---

On a different note: you are aware that you have to (at least) reload the server after changing postgresql.conf.

pg_ctl reload