[PATCH] Add verbose comments to 'era' in ja_JP locale.

[Rafal Luzynski]

29.03.2019 07:53 TAMUKI Shoichi <tamuki@linet.gr.jp> wrote:
> [...]
> Sorry, I am not happy to put the information in ja_JP locale data.

That was my first thought as well.  But after a while I found a reason
in Carlos' patch.  Yes, we should not explain in the locale data file
how era format works but we should explain how the rules have been
applied to implement this particular locale data file.  It's like
a comment in a source code file: it should not explain how the language
works but how this particular solution had been implemented and what
this piece of code meant.

Shortly: explaining the format of the era field - no; explaining how
and why it has been provided for ja_JP - yes.

> [...]
> it would be better to include the information in a documentation named
> "The locale definition source file format", that is expected to be
> created in Glibc.

Sadly, that document does not exist now.  As far as I remember the
previous documentation was so outdated that it was better to remove it.
The current guidelines say that in order to create a new locale file
you should take any existing (and working) now and change it to your
needs.

Which of course is not an excuse to put the general description of the
era field in a locale data file.

> This documentation looks something like this:
> 
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xbd/locale.html

This is definitely good but Glibc has many extensions which means
that a potential Glibc version should include this information plus
have many additional pieces.

Regards,

Rafal