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Re: [PATCH] Fix date_fmt in en_AU locale
- From: Petr Baudis <pasky at ucw dot cz>
- To: Aurelien Jarno <aurelien at aurel32 dot net>
- Cc: libc-alpha at sourceware dot org, libc-locales at sourceware dot org
- Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:52:19 +0200
- Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fix date_fmt in en_AU locale
- References: <20120429144815.GB10048@volta.aurel32.net>
Hi!
On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 04:48:15PM +0200, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
> The date_fmt definition in the en_AU locale displays the month before
> the day, which doesn't correspond to the common standards there?[1].
> The patch below fixes that, which also make the definition consistent
> with d_t_fmt.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_Australia
This patch does two different things (I'd have preferred if you
clarified that in the patch description...):
(i) Switch order from %a %b %e to %a %e %b. Wikipedia says while the
latter is the "standard", the former is common too. I personally don't
think switching between two commonly used format just because one of
them is mentioned in a government style manual is not a persuasive
argument. I'm open to discussion though. What do non-GNU locale
environments use? Is there any survey of everyday use besides the
unsourced Wikipedia statement? Is there a community of Australian
GNU users you could poll?
(ii) Switch form from %a %e %b to %A %-e %B. This is not mentioned
in the patch description at all and is missing a rationale. Using long
form in locales where it can take many characters (e.g. en_*) is fairly
uncommon. The wikipedia example uses long form but is that really more
common? Also, it includes extra commas, should we include them too?
This is not a clear-cut change so it will need more work/discussion
if we shall change anything. And for example http://www.smh.com.au/
uses old format and mix of short and long form for various fields. :-)
> 2012-04-29 Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net>
>
> * locales/en_AU: Change date_fmt to match Australian standards.
Also, I forgot to mention last time that usually, section is appended
to filename in the Changelog - * locales/en_AU (LC_TIME): ...
--
Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better
than the other way around. -- Eric S. Raymond