+
+@item LOCALE
+@cindex locale
+@cindex encoding, characters
+This item is used to set the default character encoding.
+The encoding may be specified either as an encoding name or alias
+(see @url{http://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets}), or
+as a locale name.
+If given as a locale name, only the character encoding of the
+locale is relevant.
+
+System files written by PSPP will use this encoding.
+System files read by PSPP, for which the encoding is unknown, will be
+interpreted using this encoding.
+
+The full list of valid encodings and locale names/alias are operating system
+dependent.
+The following are all examples of acceptable syntax on common GNU/Linux
+systems.
+@example
+
+SET LOCALE='iso-8859-1'.
+
+SET LOCALE='ru_RU.cp1251'.
+
+SET LOCALE='japanese'.
+
+@end example
+
+Contrary to the intuition, this command does not affect any aspect
+of the system's locale.