bug#12392: emacs-gtk misinterprets floating-point numbers under certain locales on openSUSE 12.2

[Holger Arnold]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > I admit that for a program like Emacs, this distinction is not always easy
> > to make because program code is part of its user interface.  But I think
> > that most cases can be decided using common sense.  Does the Emacs Lisp
> > language contain localized numbers?  No, it does not.  Hence, (* 0,25
> > 1,3) is not a valid Lisp expression, even undder a German locale.  But
> > when Emacs prints a message like "Your disk is 23.4% full." in the local
> > language, then I would also expect the number 23.4 to be localized.
> 
> How can Emacs do both?  How can it display "4.0" for the result of
> '(* 2.0 2.0)', but "23,4%" in a message like "Your disk is 23.4% full."?

What do you mean by "how"?  Technically, philosophically, ...?  How can GCC 
print localized error messages, but still not accept 'double x = 0,25 * 1,0;' 
in a C program?

I assume that most Emacs users can tell whether they are interacting with the 
Lisp interpreter or the "other" user interface.  So, what's the problem?

        Holger