COUNTRY sets the country code, which affects the date and time formats, the currency symbol, the decimal separator, and the thousands separator, based on a specified country. COUNTRY does not change the default settings for the language currency symbol, decimal point, thousands separator, and date and time picture strings set by CEESETL or setlocale(). COUNTRY affects only the Language Environment NLS services, not the Language Environment locale callable services.

You can set the country value using the runtime option COUNTRY or the callable service CEE3CTY.

The COUNTRY setting affects the format of the date and time in the reports generated by the RPTOPTS and RPTSTG runtime options.

Non-CICS default

COUNTRY=((US),OVR) with US signifying the United States.

CICS® default

COUNTRY=((US),OVR) with US signifying the United States.

Syntax

                                         .-OVR----.      
>>-COUNTRY--=--(--(--country_code--)--,--+-NONOVR-+--)---------><

country_code

A 2-character code that indicates to Language Environment the country on which to base the default settings.

OVR

Specifies that the option can be overridden.

NONOVR

Specifies that the option cannot be overridden.

Usage notes

If you specify an unsupported country_code, Language Environment® accepts the value and issues an informational message. When you specify an unavailable country code, you must provide a message template for that code. CEEUOPTand CEEROPT permit the specification of an unavailable country code, but give a return code of 4 and a warning message.

C/C++ considerations

Language Environment provides locales that are used in Language Environment and C++ to establish default formats for the locale-sensitive functions and locale callable services, such as date and time formatting, sorting, and currency symbols. To change the locale, you can use the setlocale() library function or the CEESETL callable service.

The settings of CEESETL or setlocale() do not affect the setting of the COUNTRY runtime option. COUNTRY affects only Language Environment NLS and date and time services. setlocale() and CEESETL affect only C/C++ locale-sensitive functions and Language Environment locale callable services.

To ensure that all settings are correct for your country, use COUNTRY and either CEESETL or setlocale().

For more information

• For more information about the CEE3CTY and the CEESETL callable services, see z/OS Language Environment Programming Reference.
• For more information about setlocale(), see z/OS XL C/C++ Programming Guide.
• For a list of countries and their codes, see National language support country codes for Language Environment and z/OS Language Environment Programming Reference.