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Re: [PATCH 2/2] Multiple locales: Use the correct 12-hour time formats
- From: Rafal Luzynski <digitalfreak at lingonborough dot com>
- To: TAMUKI Shoichi <tamuki at linet dot gr dot jp>
- Cc: libc-alpha at sourceware dot org
- Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2018 11:10:34 +0100 (CET)
- Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] Multiple locales: Use the correct 12-hour time formats
- References: <22392248.253331.1541631211954@poczta.nazwa.pl> <201812081232.AA04130@tamuki.linet.gr.jp>
8.12.2018 13:32 TAMUKI Shoichi <tamuki@linet.gr.jp> wrote:
> [...]
> I think that the change to use the correct 12-hour time formats needs
> to be carefully considered.
OK, you have convinced me partially and I will prepare new versions
of these patches where I will not change zero-padded hour indicators
into non-zero-padded ones. This bug report was not about it, it was
only about the missing AM/PM indicator.
> In some locales, although 12-hour formats
> are commonly used, there seem to be cases where there is no custom of
> using the AM/PM indicator.
>
> In this case, although it certainly becomes ambiguous, it seems that
> there is a case where it can be judged in the context or supplemented
> by adding "in the morning" to avoid ambiguity for example.
Well, that's what AM/PM means: "AM" = "ante meridiem" = "before noon"
= "in the morning". I definitely do not agree that we should not use
any AM/PM indicator because there is no such custom in some countries
(while using 12-hour clock at the same time). I believe that these
countries have already invented some form of AM/PM indicator or have
directly adapted the one used in English speaking countries, also
I think that CLDR and glibc already provide any indicators (sorry,
I am unable to verify all 80 locales while writing this email).
They must have faced the same problems multiple times in the past
in the context of dates and times processed by computers.
> So, I think that it needs to take it into account to change 12-hour
> time format to 24-hour time format.
As far as I know people tend not to understand 24-hour clock in the
countries where 12-hour clock is commonly used. Finally, let's rely
on CLDR which has a huge multinational support (which we don't have
here in glibc). What I'm trying to do here is to synchronize our
locale data with CLDR, I'm trying to avoid my own guesses and my own
research because they may be misleading.
Regards,
Rafal