[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 #9 from James B. Byrne <byrnejb@harte-lyne.ca> ---
(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.

What I am reading here is that despite being the source of the LOCALE
definitions the maintainers do not think it within scope to provide a utility
to actually create one.  Am I correct?  

And yet some of the maintainers also express the opinion that the locale files
provided do not need to meet the national regulatory requirements of places for
which they do provide locales.  See bug: Bug 12731 (four years old) and Bug
9842 (six years old).  This might get addressed now, see: Bug 16668 ( over a
year old).  

But it is now 16 years since the legal requirement referred to in this reports
went into effect in Canada. It seems to me an immoderate amount of delay in
addressing a rather simple issue.  I would suggest that this is fairly
substantial evidence that something needs to be provided to manage locale
definitions that is far more accessible to the average system administrator
than the existing arcana.

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