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Re: [PATCH] Fix date_fmt in en_AU locale


  Hi!

On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 04:48:15PM +0200, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
> The date_fmt definition in the en_AU locale displays the month before
> the day, which doesn't correspond to the common standards there?[1].
> The patch below fixes that, which also make the definition consistent
> with d_t_fmt.
> 
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_Australia

  This patch does two different things (I'd have preferred if you
clarified that in the patch description...):

  (i) Switch order from %a %b %e to %a %e %b. Wikipedia says while the
latter is the "standard", the former is common too. I personally don't
think switching between two commonly used format just because one of
them is mentioned in a government style manual is not a persuasive
argument. I'm open to discussion though. What do non-GNU locale
environments use? Is there any survey of everyday use besides the
unsourced Wikipedia statement?  Is there a community of Australian
GNU users you could poll?

  (ii) Switch form from %a %e %b to %A %-e %B. This is not mentioned
in the patch description at all and is missing a rationale. Using long
form in locales where it can take many characters (e.g. en_*) is fairly
uncommon. The wikipedia example uses long form but is that really more
common? Also, it includes extra commas, should we include them too?

  This is not a clear-cut change so it will need more work/discussion
if we shall change anything. And for example http://www.smh.com.au/
uses old format and mix of short and long form for various fields. :-)

> 2012-04-29  Aurelien Jarno  <aurelien@aurel32.net>
> 
>         * locales/en_AU: Change date_fmt to match Australian standards.

  Also, I forgot to mention last time that usually, section is appended
to filename in the Changelog - * locales/en_AU (LC_TIME): ...

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
	Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better
	than the other way around.  -- Eric S. Raymond


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