From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 29753 invoked by alias); 6 Nov 2013 16:33:48 -0000 Mailing-List: contact libc-locales-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: libc-locales-owner@sourceware.org Received: (qmail 26996 invoked by uid 55); 6 Nov 2013 16:30:30 -0000 From: "bugdal at aerifal dot cx" To: libc-locales@sourceware.org Subject: [Bug localedata/14641] Add a strftime()-like function for formatting human names Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 16:33:00 -0000 X-Bugzilla-Reason: CC X-Bugzilla-Type: changed X-Bugzilla-Watch-Reason: None X-Bugzilla-Product: glibc X-Bugzilla-Component: localedata X-Bugzilla-Version: unspecified X-Bugzilla-Keywords: X-Bugzilla-Severity: enhancement X-Bugzilla-Who: bugdal at aerifal dot cx X-Bugzilla-Status: NEW X-Bugzilla-Priority: P2 X-Bugzilla-Assigned-To: unassigned at sourceware dot org X-Bugzilla-Target-Milestone: --- X-Bugzilla-Flags: X-Bugzilla-Changed-Fields: Message-ID: In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Bugzilla-URL: http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/ Auto-Submitted: auto-generated MIME-Version: 1.0 X-SW-Source: 2013-q4/txt/msg00058.txt.bz2 http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=14641 --- Comment #6 from Rich Felker --- On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 04:08:37PM +0000, simon.mcvittie at collabora dot co.uk wrote: > OK, so is your position that _NL_NAME_NAME_FMT should never be used, and if we > need similar functionality, we should invent our own? My opinion on this is not authoritative for glibc, but yes, my position is that this locale property should be considered deprecated and that new features using it should not be added. My reasoning is that treating name formatting as a property of the user's locale is fundamentally wrong. The way you format a person's name is a function of _their_ cultural conventions, not your cultural conventions. Since libc's locale system does not and cannot know the conventions associated with the name being formatted, it cannot help you get the correct results. In some sense, _NL_NAME_NAME_FMT is less of an offense because it might help programs know the right formatting (or a right default to try) for new names introduced by the user. If a program takes the format string and does its own formatting, it can also accept other non-default formats. But if a program requests that the libc do the formatting based on the current locale, there is no way to handle non-default formats. In this sense, I would object less to a function like strftime for names that took the name format string as an explicit argument, rather than using the current locale's format string. This is certainly an option that could be proposed and discussed. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.