Re: libc/5059: Wrong date format for locale sl_SI

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere at hungry dot com>]

Hello.

I came across your locale change request in the glibc problem report
database, and would like to assist you in getting the correction
accepted by the glibc maintainers.

[Aleks Reinhardt, 2003-06-22]
> In Slovenian (sl_SI), a full-stop (.) is in most cases a
> left-adjacent punctuation mark, and not a right-adjacent one. This
> is true for dates as well, even though few people are aware of it.
>
> However, the date format in glibc/localedata/locales/sl_SI is
> DD.MM.YYYY (thus, today's date would be 22.06.2003), rather than the
> correct DD. MM. YYYY (22. 06. 2003).
>
> I propose this be changed.

Looking at the current sl_SI locale, I see the following format
strings in LC_TIME:

  d_t_fmt    "%a %d %b %Y %T %Z"
  d_fmt      "%d.%m.%Y"
  t_fmt      "%T"
  am_pm      "";""
  t_fmt_ampm ""
  date_fmt   "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"

If I understand you correctnly, you want to change the d_fmt format
like this:

  d_fmt   "%d. %m. %Y"

Is this correct?  The resulting locale diff look like this:

Index: sl_SI
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/glibc/libc/localedata/locales/sl_SI,v
retrieving revision 1.10
diff -u -3 -p -u -r1.10 sl_SI
--- sl_SI       26 Oct 2000 23:22:57 -0000      1.10
+++ sl_SI       29 Jun 2003 13:02:43 -0000
@@ -2176,7 +2176,7 @@ mon     "<U006A><U0061><U006E><U0075><U0
         "<U006E><U006F><U0076><U0065><U006D><U0062><U0065><U0072>";/
         "<U0064><U0065><U0063><U0065><U006D><U0062><U0065><U0072>"
 d_t_fmt "<U0025><U0061><U0020><U0025><U0064><U0020><U0025><U0062><U0020><U0025><U0059><U0020><U0025><U0054><U0020><U0025><U005A>"
-d_fmt   "<U0025><U0064><U002E><U0025><U006D><U002E><U0025><U0059>"
+d_fmt   "<U0025><U0064><U002E><U0020><U0025><U006D><U002E><U0020><U0025><U0059>"
 t_fmt   "<U0025><U0054>"
 am_pm   "";""
 t_fmt_ampm ""

Did you check with the original author of the locale if he agrees to
your change?  It seem to be Borka Jerman-Blaz<ic<
<jerman-blazic@ijs.si>, and I copy this email to him to let him know.
It is a lot easier to get the change accepted by the glibc maintainers
(I'm not one of those) if the author agree to the change.

> Sadly, the authoritative books on the subject are not available
> online, hence I cannot link you to a website describing this
> specifically. If you require further proof that my version is
> correct and the variant currently implemented is not, I could, I
> suppose, scan appropriate sections of certain books for you;
> otherwise, you can see correct usage (although it has nothing to do
> with the topic itself) on this website: http://www.rzs-hm.si/

At that site, I see the following text with a date in it:

  Pojasnilo:

  Z uveljavitvijo Zakona o spremembah in dopolnitvah zakona o
  organizaciji in delovnem podro?ju ministrstev (Ur.l.RS 30/2001) dne
  27. 4. 2001 je Hidrometeorolo?ki zavod RS prenehal
  obstajati. Njegovo dejavnost nadaljuje Agencija RS za okolje.

I agree that it seem to support your change request, using
'27. 4. 2001' as the date.