[coreutils] Re: [PATCH]: ls: do not show long iso time format for en_* locales

[Jim Meyering]

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 30/09/09 10:54, Pádraig Brady wrote:
...
> I'm going to apply the attached to be consistent
> with coreutils releases since 8.1 which
> inadvertently shipped an en.po file, thus getting
> the shorter POSIX format.
>
> Note Fedora 13 has got the inadvertent format change
> and since there have been around 350K F13 connections to yum:
>   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics
> with about half of those using English:
>   http://smolt.fedoraproject.org/static/stats/stats.html
> and assuming half of those use the shell at some stage
> I estimate at least 50K en_ people have run `ls -l` and not complained:
>   
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&version=13&component=coreutils&product=Fedora&classification=Fedora
>
>> On a related note, I notice that we don't check the return
>> from setlocale() and so will use english months
>> when there is no system locale installed at all.
>
> I'm not sure it's worth switching to the numeric long iso
> format for the above unusual case.
>
> I will post a follow up patch though to ensure we
> don't inadvertently ship non translation project po
> files in future.

Thanks.  That's enough justification for me,
and the patch looks fine.

> Subject: [PATCH] ls: use the POSIX date style when the locale does not 
> specify one
>
> Previously we defaulted to "long-iso" format in locales without
> specific format translations, like the en_* locales for example.
> This reverts part of commit 6837183d, 08-11-2005, "ls ... acts like
> --time-style='posix-long-iso' if the locale settings are messed up"
> * src/ls.c (decode_switches): Only use the ISO format when specified.
> * NEWS: Mention the change in behavior.
> Reported by Daniel Qarras at http://bugzilla.redhat.com/525134