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

["keld at keldix dot com" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

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

--- Comment #22 from keld at keldix dot com <keld at keldix dot com> ---
On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 04:11:40PM +0000, byrnejb@harte-lyne.ca wrote:
> 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.

A first start to help users could be to write up a howto on this.
Your desctiption above could be a good start to this end.
I agree that it is cumbersome, but then some things are cumbersome
in the systems area. It is also cumbersome to change the kernel behaviour or
to change things in an application. I actually thnk it is less cumbersome to 
make a custom locale than to change the other mentioned things.


Anyway if it is just to change Canadian time specs, you could copy just
the LC_TIME category from another locale that works as desired.
If you need ISO 8601 formatted dates and times in English, the i18n
locale might do.
in sh: LC_TIME=i18n

I have tried to work with Canadian SCC to have them issue official Canadian 
locales, for about 10 yoears via my friends in SCC, but that has not 
concluded in an official blessed open source set of locales (English/French).
I am still working on that, and have some new tactics. Lets see.

Best regards
Keld

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