In the Zend Framework, locale-aware classes rely on Zend_Locale
to automatically select a locale, as explained above. For example, in a Zend Framework
web application, constructing a date using Zend_Date without
specifying a locale results in an object with a locale based on information provided by
the current user's web browser.
Example 526. Dates default to correct locale of web users
<?php
$date = new Zend_Date('2006',Zend_Date::YEAR);
To override this default behavior, and force locale-aware Zend Framework components to use specific locales, regardless of the origin of your website visitors, explicitly specify a locale as the third argument to the constructor.
Example 527. Overriding default locale selection
<?php
$usLocale = new Zend_Locale('en_US');
$date = new Zend_Date('2006', Zend_Date::YEAR, $usLocale);
$temp = new Zend_Measure_Temperature('100,10',
Zend_Measure::TEMPERATURE,
$usLocale);
If you know many objects should all use the same default locale, explicitly specify the default locale to avoid the overhead of each object determining the default locale.
Example 528. Performance optimization when using a default locale
<?php
$locale = new Zend_Locale();
$date = new Zend_Date('2006', Zend_Date::YEAR, $locale);
$temp = new Zend_Measure_Temperature('100,10',
Zend_Measure::TEMPERATURE,
$locale);