[Bug localedata/9859] New: New fr_FR locale month abbrevs are not fixed length

[Bug localedata/9859] New: New fr_FR locale month abbrevs are not fixed length

[aurelien at aurel32 dot net]

The new fr_FR locale (from version 4.3 to 4.4) have made the length of month 
abbreviation variable from 3 to 5 characters, while they were 3 characters long 
before. This make the output of some programs (eg ls -l) unreadable.

Please revert the change, or at least switch to a fixed length abbreviation 
like on other locales.

-- 
           Summary: New fr_FR locale month abbrevs are not fixed length
           Product: glibc
           Version: unspecified
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: localedata
        AssignedTo: libc-locales at sources dot redhat dot com
        ReportedBy: aurelien at aurel32 dot net
                CC: glibc-bugs at sources dot redhat dot com,stephane dot
                    raimbault at gmail dot com
 GCC build triplet: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
  GCC host triplet: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
GCC target triplet: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9859

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs are not fixed length

[stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com]

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------- Additional Comments From stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com  2009-02-17 21:36 -------
/bin/ls -l uses the format ISO on my computer (it's a fixed length)
drwx------   2 stephane stephane    4096 2008-12-09 08:40 work

Do you use an alias?

The choice to use variable length for has been discussed to avoid any drawbacks
and the main constraint is to use short words when space is tight. Some other
languages use longer abmon than 3 characters.

This has been made to be fix sprintf %b in graphical application like the GTK+
calendar (users were puzzled about 'jui', 'juin' or 'juillet'?) and to conform
to the official French abbreviations.

1 - abmon:
jan -> janv.
fév -> févr.
mar -> mars
avr -> avril
mai -> mai
jui -> juin
jul -> juil.
aoû -> août
sep -> sept.
oct -> oct.
nov -> nov.
déc -> déc.

PS: ls -l --time-style=locale doesn't change anything...

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs are not fixed length

[aurelien at aurel32 dot net]

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------- Additional Comments From aurelien at aurel32 dot net  2009-02-17 22:21 -------
> /bin/ls -l uses the format ISO on my computer (it's a fixed length)
> drwx------   2 stephane stephane    4096 2008-12-09 08:40 work
>
> Do you use an alias?

No. I am the same output as you with an old coreutils version. With a recent one
(>= 6.0), I get:
drwxr-xr-x  12 aurel32 aurel32      4096 mai 26  2008 audio
-rwxr-xr-x   1 aurel32 aurel32      4096 janv. 30 12:29 photos
drwxr-xr-x   2 aurel32 aurel32      4096 déc. 21 20:46 work

> The choice to use variable length for has been discussed to avoid any drawbacks
> and the main constraint is to use short words when space is tight. Some other
> languages use longer abmon than 3 characters.
>
> This has been made to be fix sprintf %b in graphical application like the GTK+
> calendar (users were puzzled about 'jui', 'juin' or 'juillet'?) and to conform
> to the official French abbreviations.

The problem is not the length of the abbreviation, it's important to be able to
see the difference between 'juin' and 'juillet'. But variable lenght is really
causing problems.



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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs are not fixed length

[stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com]

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------- Additional Comments From stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com  2009-02-18 12:27 -------
> drwxr-xr-x  12 aurel32 aurel32      4096 mai 26  2008 audio
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 aurel32 aurel32      4096 janv. 30 12:29 photos
> drwxr-xr-x   2 aurel32 aurel32      4096 déc. 21 20:46 work

The same output with the old translation still a bit strange
drwxr-xr-x  12 aurel32 aurel32      4096 mai 26  2008 audio
-rwxr-xr-x   1 aurel32 aurel32      4096 jan 30 12:29 photos
drwxr-xr-x   2 aurel32 aurel32      4096 déc 21 20:46 work

because the year replaces the time when the year is different as the current one
(I think) but it's another problem.

May be it's also possible to fix coreutils assumption about the month length to
display:

drwxr-xr-x  12 aurel32 aurel32      4096 mai   26  2008 audio
-rwxr-xr-x   1 aurel32 aurel32      4096 janv. 30 12:29 photos
drwxr-xr-x   2 aurel32 aurel32      4096 déc.  21 20:46 work

The length of the other fields is dynamic and other languages have the same
problem on month abbreviations (> 3).

-- 


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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs abmon are not fixed length

[samuel dot thibault at ens-lyon dot org]

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |samuel dot thibault at ens-
                   |                            |lyon dot org
            Summary|New fr_FR locale month      |New fr_FR locale month
                   |abbrevs are not fixed length|abbrevs abmon are not fixed
                   |                            |length


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9859

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs abmon are not fixed length

[stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com]

------- Additional Comments From stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com  2009-03-14 22:52 -------
I wasn't able to see the problem because the link to
/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_TIME/coreutils.mo is broken on Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04
(I've reported the problem).

The French translation of coreutils contains many mistakes and it's wrong to use
the same translation as the English one for dates:

#: src/ls.c:698
msgid "%b %e  %Y"
msgstr "%b %e  %Y" -> "%e %b  %Y"

#: src/ls.c:706
msgid "%b %e %H:%M"
msgstr "%b %e %H:%M" -> "%e %b %H:%M"

but I can't fix the alignment problem with this simple string (do you see the
hack before the %Y?).

I'll continue to discuss the problem on the coreutils list.

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs abmon are not fixed length

[drepper at redhat dot com]

------- Additional Comments From drepper at redhat dot com  2009-03-15 20:44 -------
The field has never been guaranteed to be of a fixed size.  If this creates
problems fix the user of the interfaces.

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |INVALID


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9859

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs abmon are not fixed length

[ebb9 at byu dot net]

------- Additional Comments From ebb9 at byu dot net  2009-03-20 15:55 -------
POSIX 2008 added the requirement for supporting field widths in strftime, but
also makes it explicit that field widths for anything other than C, F, G, and Y
is implementation-defined.  Why not define the glibc implementation of strftime
to allow:

%5b

as requesting an expansion to a string with any necessary leading space to
occupy 5 columns (note that this is different than padding to 5 bytes), in
locales such as French with variable-spaced abmon.  That way, translators could
once again provide a string that occupies fixed width when used in ls -l output,
by requesting that strftime pad the short months to the same column width of the
longer abbreviations, regardless of multibyte characters encountered during that
padding.

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2009-03/msg00258.html


-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |REOPENED
         Resolution|INVALID                     |


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9859

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs abmon are not fixed length

[stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com]

------- Additional Comments From stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com  2009-05-03 14:36 -------
The support of field widths in strftime was a possible solution but the bug is
now fixed by
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=commith=612b647dd16d5abc03b295abe42d8b4a0fe660f7

Feel free to create a new bug report to talk about support of field widths in
strftime.



-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|REOPENED                    |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |FIXED


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9859

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[Bug localedata/9859] New fr_FR locale month abbrevs abmon are not fixed length

[stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com]

------- Additional Comments From stephane dot raimbault at gmail dot com  2009-08-17 02:01 -------
*** Bug 10525 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |pablo dot martin-gomez at
                   |                            |laposte dot net


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