linux/glibc/howto.html

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  14     <h1>How to write a GNU libc locale</h1>
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  23     <p>This is a draft document explaining how to write locale files
  24       for GNU libc.  It will not go into details, but reference
  25       specifications.  It will on the other hand mention some of the
  26       pitfalls, and try to document the current practice.</p>
  27
  28     <h2>How to choose the locale file name</h2>
  29
  30       <p>Locale names consist of three parts.  The language code, the
  31         country/region code, and the optional modifier.  The format is
  32         language_REGION@modifier.  The language code is a code from
  33         ISO 639.  The two-letter code is prefered, but a three letter
  34         code is accepted if no two-letter code is available.  The
  35         country/region code is a code from ISO 3166.  If the language
  36         or region in question is missing in the ISO standard, one need
  37         to get the ISO standard updated before the locale will be
  38         included in glibc.</p>
  39
  40       <p>Little is known about the requirements for the naming of
  41         modifiers.  The following modifiers are currently used:
  42         abegede, cyrillic, euro and saaho.  This might indicate that
  43         lower case letters are prefered in modifier names.</p>
  44
  45
  46       <ul>
  47         <li><a href="http://www.unicode.org/onlinedat/countries.html">ISO 3166</a></li>
  48         <li><a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/">ISO 639</a>
  49       </ul>
  50
  51     <h2>Category order</h2>
  52
  53     <p>To make it easier to compare locales with each other, I
  54       recommend using the same order for the categories in all
  55       locales.  Any order will do, so I picked the order used in most
  56       locales, and decided to recommend this order:</p>
  57
  58     <ol>
  59       <li>LC_IDENTIFICATION
  60       <li>LC_CTYPE
  61       <li>LC_COLLATE
  62       <li>LC_MONETARY
  63       <li>LC_NUMERIC
  64       <li>LC_TIME
  65       <li>LC_MESSAGES
  66       <li>LC_PAPER
  67       <li>LC_NAME
  68       <li>LC_ADDRESS
  69       <li>LC_TELEPHONE
  70       <li>LC_MEASUREMENT
  71     </ol>
  72
  73     <h2>Reuse when possible</h2>
  74
  75     - "copy" from existing locales if the content should be identical
  76
  77     <h2>LD_INDENTIFICATION</h2>
  78
  79     - standard refs in the LD_INDENTIFICATION
  80
  81     <h2>LC_MESSAGES</h2>
  82
  83     - yes/no expr should have the form ^[yYnN<extra>], without 0 and 1
  84
  85     <h2>Standard documents and specifications</h2>
  86
  87     </div>
  88
  89     <hr>
  90     <address><a href="mailto:pere@hungry.com">Petter Reinholdtsen</a></address>
  91 <!-- Created: Sun Mar 21 18:14:42 CET 2004 -->
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  93 Last modified: Sat Jul 24 15:19:14 CEST 2004
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