Followup to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
By author: Bruno Haible <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In newsgroup: linux.utf8
>
> Obeying LANG is important in two scenarios:
>
> 1) For the user who uses a single locale, and this locale's encoding
> is not ISO-8859-1. He sets LANG in $HOME/.profile.
>
> Such a user will in the long run use non-ASCII filenames. They
> will be stored in locale encoding on the disk. Programs should
> be able to display and use such filenames.
>
> 2) For the user who tries out a locale in a different encoding.
> He sets LANG on the command line.
>
> Such a user will have to be prepared to problems with non-ASCII
> filenames. But everything else should work without manual
> intervention.
> LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 xterm -> get an UTF-8 xterm
> LANG=ja_JP.EUC-JP gvim file -> edit EUC-JP encoded file
> LANG=vi_VN emacs -> start emacs with Vietnamese
> input method
> etc.
>
> It's for the second case that it is important that no encodings are
> stored in $HOME/.* files. And it's for the first case that non-ASCII
> filenames must be supported.
>
Actually, the conditions for non-ASCII filenames is even stricter: for
the system to work consistently the way you describe, the ENTIRE
SYSTEM needs to use the same locale. A user who sets a locale other
than the system standard locale (which may or may not be ISO-8859-1;
in fact, I claim the only sane default in the long run is UTF-8) and
then uses locale-specific encodings in the filesystem is going to be
fucked sooner or later. Too many things will malfunction, be it
Samba or administrator/distribution-added files which is in the system
locale but not the locale expected by our (l)user.
FILENAME ENCODINGS IN DIFFERENT LOCALES DO NOT WORK. PERIOD.
The reason is trivial: filename encoding is a systemwide property.
There is no possibility for adjusting filename encoding on a per-file
or per-user basis. This is one, of many, mistakes the "locale" people
made when they set up their system. It just doesn't work right.
-hpa
--
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"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
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-
Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
