Re: locale specific ordering in EN_US -- why is a<A<b<B<y<Y<z<Z?

[Linda Walsh]

Chet Ramey wrote:

> On 5/21/12 3:37 PM, Linda Walsh wrote:
>
> > ----
> >     This is a prime example of Posix being stupid and bad for
> > computer science.
> >
> >     They take a deterministic behavior and define it to be
> > non-deterministic and break 1000's of programs.
>
> Try being a little less English-centric.  Collating order varies by
> language.
>
> Posix says that ranges work the way you are used to if you force the
> traditional ordering using the `C' or `Posix' locale.  Take a deep
> breath and use LC_ALL=C in your scripts to avoid depending on whatever
> your OS uses as the default.



FWIW, I put LC_COLLATE='C' in my System startup scripts...

So I'm NOT being bitten by this problem directly... I'm trying to
figure out how the heck this got voted on in POSIX, to be a correct
standard such that it would break current programs...

POSIX is not supposed to be prescriptive -- but **descriptive**...

I can't think of anywhere that a-z or A-Z would have included letters
from the opposite case... so how did POSIX come to *prescribe* that this
be the case... since I can't see that as being descriptive.