Re: Talk about glibc locale format

[Denis Barbier <barbier at linuxfr dot org>]

On Tue, Jul 05, 2005 at 02:01:39AM +0200, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
[...]
> As far as I can tell, LC_TIME *is* backwards compatible, in the sense
> that conforming POSIX specs will be valid and work as intended with
> 14652 semantics.
> 
> But if there is added functionality, then you need added support.
> This is also true for the extensions eg in LC_COLLATE which cannot be
> handled with POSIX. In general one cannot expect that at 14652 locale
> can be handled by POSIX. However the other way around should work
> without any problems, a valid POSIX locale should work unchanged, and as
> intended in POSIX, with the 14652 semantics. That is my definition of
> backwards compatibility, and what we tried hard to assure was
> accomplished in 14652.

Programers use nl_langinfo() to access to locale information, but they
have no standard way to determine if nl_langinfo(DAY_1) refers to Sunday
or Monday.  Moreover all existing cal-like programs get instantly broken
if nl_langinfo(DAY_1) becomes Monday instead of Sunday, which is why I
am stating that ISO 14652 is breaking compatibility, not adding
features.
It would IMHO have been much better to define new keywords when
POSIX definitions are altered in such an incompatible way.

Denis