Unknown locale error on freshly brewed python

Alec Jacobson

May 18, 2016

weblog/

    import matplotlib.path
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 1131, in <module>
    rcParams = rc_params()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 975, in rc_params
    return rc_params_from_file(fname, fail_on_error)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 1100, in rc_params_from_file
    config_from_file = _rc_params_in_file(fname, fail_on_error)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 1018, in _rc_params_in_file
    with _open_file_or_url(fname) as fd:
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.11/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/contextlib.py", line 17, in __enter__
    return self.gen.next()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 1000, in _open_file_or_url
    encoding = locale.getdefaultlocale()[1]
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.11/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/locale.py", line 543, in getdefaultlocale
    return _parse_localename(localename)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.11/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/locale.py", line 475, in _parse_localename
    raise ValueError, 'unknown locale: %s' % localename
ValueError: unknown locale: UTF-8

I fixed this by adding

export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8