Re: [PATCH v6 1/2] strftime: Set the default width of "%Ey" to 2 [BZ #23758]

[Zack Weinberg <zackw at panix dot com>]

On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 10:52 PM TAMUKI Shoichi <tamuki@linet.gr.jp> wrote:
> Hello Rafal and Zack,
> >
> > "The numeric era year" sounds unclear for me.  I think you mean
> > "the number of the year" or "the number of the year in the current era"
> > or anything like that.
>
> I was concerned about the word "current" from a while ago.  "%Ey" does
> not necessarily indicate the year of the current era.  For example:
>
> $ LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 date -d "2018-04-01" +"%Ey"
> 30
> $ LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 date -d "1955-04-01" +"%Ey"
> 30

Yes, you are right, "current" should not be used.  This occurred to me
when I was writing a later part of my suggestions but I did not
remember to go back and fix this commit message.

> In addition, is "In Japanese locales," correct?
> Perhaps, is "In Japanese locale," better?

There is only one Japanese locale right now, ja_JP, but there could be
others in the future.  There are many native speakers of Japanese in
other countries; I don't know if they would want to use this calendar,
but it's not out of the question.  So it seems more natural to me to
say "In Japanese locales."

(Also, it would have to be "In _the_ Japanese locale" if we were going
to make "locale" singular.)

So maybe something like this:

| In Japanese locales, strftime's alternative year format (%Ey) produces
| a year numbered within a time period called an _era_.  A new era typically
| begins when a new emperor is enthroned.  The result of %Ey is therefore
| usually a one-or two-digit number.

> The manual in the second patch also had the word "current".  Can we
> similarly drop the word "current"?
>
> | If the @code{E} modifier is specified (@code{%EC}), instead produces
> | the name of the period for the current year (e.g. an era name) in the
> | locale's alternative calendar.

Yes, same problem and I think here we can just say "the period for the year".

zw