Re: language list

[László Kovács <laszlo kovacs Sun COM>]

Christian Rose wrote:
> 
> László Kovács wrote:
> > I am trying to implement a similar language list mechanism as in
> > gnome-libs/gnome_i18n_get_language_list(). This is about querying
> > LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES and LANG in this order, in fact setlocale() does
> > this all for me. My problem is that although this is implemented in
> > gnome-libs() Linux does not seem to like language lists in these
> > variables. I tried to set some lists, but my setlocale() call still
> > returns C, although the environment variables are set to the list. I
> > dont know what am I doing wrong. On the other hand on Solaris setting
> > these variables to a language list is illegal, it can be set to one
> > locale only and only to one of those that are installed.
> 
> I *beleive* this is the same for Linux. I have never seen a system with
> a language list in the LC or LANG variables myself, and it wouldn't
> surprise me if it isn't supported. But I don't know for sure. The glibc
> manual (http://www.gnu.org/manual/glibc/html_mono/libc.html#SEC111)
> mentions that language (locale) lists should be possible in the LANGUAGE
> variable though:
> 
>         "When developing the message translation functions it was felt
>         that the functionality provided by the variables above is not
>         sufficient. For example, it should be possible to specify more
>         than one locale name. Take a Swedish user who better speaks
>         German than English, and a program whose messages are output
>         in English by default. It should be possible to specify that
>         the first choice of language is Swedish, the second German,
>         and if this also fails to use English. This is possible with
>         the variable LANGUAGE. For further description of this GNU
>         extension see section User influence on gettext
>         (http://www.gnu.org/manual/glibc/html_mono/libc.html#SEC137)."
> 
> Christian

Yes, this is the answer probably, I also discovered it in the meantime.

Thanks,

Laszlo