Windows: Get LID from locale string?

Question

I have string data representing locales, like "fr" or "en". I need to convert it to the appropriate LCID values, like 0x80c or 0x409. Is there a function or macro to do so?

I'm using C++ on Windows 7.

Answer 1

Apparently not in the Windows API. Indeed, I cannot find any suitable function here nor here.

I guess the best thing to do is to add a resource text file with all abbreviations and their LCIDs, and then write a LocaleStringToLCID function yourself. But I wonder where you would find the two-letter abbreviations. The MSDN page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa912040.aspx only employs full-length and TLA locale strings. Maybe here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes

Update

I now see that the link that the OP posted, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa912040.aspx, applies to Windows Mobile, not the desktop OS! Hence I also looked at the wrong documentation!

Answer 2

Those are LCID values, not sure what LID means. You can get them out of GetLocaleInfoEx(), available in Vista and up. You need to pass a locale name like "en-US", necessary to nail down the language locale. For example:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <windows.h>
#include <assert.h>

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    LCID lcid = 0;
    BOOL ok = GetLocaleInfoEx(L"en-US", LOCALE_RETURN_NUMBER | LOCALE_ILANGUAGE, (LPWSTR)&lcid, sizeof(lcid));
    assert(ok);
    wprintf(L"LCID = %04x\n", lcid);
    return 0;
}

Output: LCID = 0409