Get Culture - PowerShell

Overview

The Get-Culture command in PowerShell retrieves information about the current or specified culture. It displays various culture-specific settings such as the current user interface (UI) language, the formatting conventions for numbers, dates, and currency, and the sorting rules for strings. This command is useful for debugging internationalization and localization issues, examining the cultural context of a script or application, or programmatically setting the culture for a specific operation.

Syntax

Get-Culture [[-Name] <String>] [-UICulture <String>] [-Culture <String>]
 [-AllCultures] [-CultureName <String>] [-FullName]

Options/Flags

  • -Name (String): Specifies the name of the culture to retrieve information about. Use a neutral culture name to retrieve the culture used by the current user interface.
  • -UICulture (String): Retrieves the current user interface culture.
  • -Culture (String): Retrieves the current system culture.
  • -AllCultures: Retrieves information about all installed cultures.
  • -CultureName (String): Retrieves the full name of the specified culture.
  • -FullName: Retrieves the full name of the current or specified culture.

Examples

Example 1: Get the current UI culture:

Get-Culture -UICulture

Example 2: Display the full name of the current culture:

Get-Culture -FullName

Example 3: Retrieve information about all installed cultures:

Get-Culture -AllCultures

Common Issues

  • Culture not found: If the specified culture name is invalid or not installed, the command will throw an exception.
  • Incorrect culture settings: Culture-specific settings may differ between computers, which can lead to unexpected results if the script relies on specific formatting conventions.
  • Limited support for some cultures: Not all cultures provide comprehensive formatting and sorting rules.

Integration

The Get-Culture command can be combined with other PowerShell commands for advanced scenarios. For instance:

  • Set the culture for a specific cmdlet using -Culture parameter:
Get-Process -Culture en-US
  • Use the output of Get-Culture to set the culture for a specific thread:
[System.Threading.Thread]::CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = Get-Culture -Name en-US