Re: what value of $LANG is required for gtk-2.0?

[Vlad Harchev <hvv hippo ru>]

On 12 Apr 2001, Havoc Pennington wrote:

> 
> Vlad Harchev <hvv hippo ru> writes:
> >  
> >  It's obvious that locale with utf8 charset is required for gtk2 apps to
> > function, at least in localized (translated to some language) form (since
> > gettext() returns strings in the current locale's encoding, locale encoding
> > should be utf8 for localized GUI be available to the user).
> 
> Are you sure gettext cares about encoding? I don't think it interprets
> the translated strings at all. They can just be UTF-8 regardless of
> current locale.

 Yes, the gettext() in glibc-2.2 converts strings from catalog charset to
locale's charset on the fly.

 Also recently-released standalone gettext (it happened not more than 3 weeks
ago) also converts strings from catalog charset to locale's charset on the
fly. It may be wise idea to include that gettext with the gtk package itself
and compile it in the gtk on anything but linux.

 Also there is a problem that ALL existing Makefiles created by autoconf copy
translations to 
	 $prefix/prefix/share/locale/<lang_name>
rather then to
	 $prefix/prefix/share/locale/<lang_name>.<encoding_name>
(e.g. russian translations are currently installed to
$prefix/prefix/share/locale/ru rather than to 
$prefix/prefix/share/locale/ru.KOI8-R for example) - this means we *have to*
use that new gettext that converts between charsets on the fly if we want to
be able to run version of the same app linked with gtk2 and gtk-1.2.x with
localized UI.

 But why you ask this? - the major concern is probably inability to use gtk on
anything but linux or solaris or freebsd for non-ascii locales.

> Havoc
> 

 Best regards,
  -Vlad