[Bug localedata/18408] Provide software utility to permit user created custom locales

["byrnejb at harte-lyne dot ca" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18408

--- Comment #13 from James B. Byrne <byrnejb@harte-lyne.ca> ---
(In reply to Carlos O'Donell from comment #12)
> (In reply to James B. Byrne from comment #9)
> > (In reply to Marko Myllynen from comment #5)
> > > The upstream localedef(1) manual page was contributed less than a year ago
> > > while RHEL 6 was released in 2010 so it's no wonder it's not part of RHEL 6.
> > > The used date and time formats are described in strftime(3).
> > > 
> > > I don't think a special locale editing tool is part of the scope for glibc
> > > as the locale definition files can already be edited with standard
> > > utilities, perhaps such a special tool could be something for projects like
> > > GNOME or KDE to consider.
> > 
> > So all anyone need do to create a custom locale file is to:
> > 
> > 1. discover the library builder utility 'localedef'
> > 2. discover and copy an existing file from the locales shipped with the
> > distro
> > 3. figure out what this sort of stuff means:
> > date_fmt	"<U0025><U0061><U0020><U0025><U0062><U0020><U0025><U0065>/
> > <U0020><U0025><U0048><U003A><U0025><U004D><U003A><U0025><U0053><U0020>/
> > <U0025><U005A><U0020><U0025><U0059>"
> > 4. infer that this somehow is related to strftime
> > 5. determine the exact strftime format field desired
> > 6. translate string into utf-8 code points
> > 7. manually edit the locale copy file with vi, nano, emac or equivalent and
> > insert the the updated utf-8 code points
> > 8. discover through trial and error how the localedef utility must be used
> > to  build the custom library files from the edited custom locale definition
> > files
> > 9. configure the system to use the new locale files
> > 
> > What could be simpler?  After all, it did not take me much more than four or
> > five days to figure this all out on my own. I have probably forgotten a
> > number of other steps that were also necessary and so are not listed here. 
> > And I was not the first to run into this morass.  I discovered my experience
> > was shared by the author of Bug #985981 only later. No doubt there are many
> > others who either give up or lack the confidence or energy to file a bug
> > report.
> 
> I hope you're joking right? That's way too many steps. As a senior project
> developer I admit it's way too hard to create locale customizations.
> However, a tool to do so might be better created outside of glibc and as a
> frontend to localedef.
> 

The outline given is no joke. If anything I have understated the difficulty.

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