[Bug libc/2648] localedata/locales/es_ES has incorrect LC_COLLATE <space> handling

["mfabian at suse dot de" <sourceware-bugzilla@sourceware.org>]

------- Additional Comments From mfabian at suse dot de  2006-05-09 16:00 -------
Original comment in the Novell bugzilla:

When LC_COLLATE=es_ES, the sort command ignores spaces in its sorting
algorithm, so it sorts
        MAS PUJADAS, FRANCESC
after
        MASOLIVER GARCIA, JAIME 
instead of before, even though the comments in
/usr/share/i18n/locales/es_ES indicate that the sorting algorithm for this
locales should take spaces into account (and sort them before punctuation
characters, numbers and letters).

This spanish customer is not using LC_COLLATE="POSIX" because the sort  command
gives incorrect results when dealing with characters with spanish 
accents so he has to use LC_COLLATE="es_ES.UTF-8" which is ignoring spaces. 
Even /usr/share/i18n/locales/es_ES states:

LC_COLLATE

% Base collation scheme: 1994-03-22

% Ordering algorithm:
%  1. Spaces and hyphen (but not soft
%     hyphen) before punctuation
%     characters, punctuation characters
%     before numbers,
%     numbers before letters.

I also tested it with every other language setting and the results are always
the same:

mortlach:~ # export LC_COLLATE="POSIX"
mortlach:~ # sort demo

AB CDESY
ABC DETZ
ABCD ETX

mortlach:~ # export LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"
mortlach:~ # sort demo

AB CDESY
ABCD ETX
ABC DETZ

mortlach:~ # export LC_COLLATE="de_DE.UTF-8"
mortlach:~ # sort demo

AB CDESY
ABCD ETX
ABC DETZ

So the question is why LC_COLLATE="POSIX" behaves differently to any other
language setting, if this is a feature where is it documented and why is it so?
It doesn't make sence that LC_COLLATE="POSIX" behaves different to the English
settings (UK & US) which on the other hand behave exactly the same way as any
other language setting so there must be a reason why this is so


-- 


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=2648

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