Re: [PATCH] Fix coreutils compilation with --disable-nls (long)

[Paul Eggert]

address@hidden (Andrew Church) writes:

> I take back what I said in my previous response to you--it appears
> coreutils-5.0 does not, in fact, properly disable NLS when the --disable-nls
> configure option is given:
> 
> # /bin/ls is compiled with --disable-nls as-is here; LANG is set to ja_JP
> # note the date format in the first case versus the second
> crystal:/data/anime/nadia2> ls -Al
> total 181376
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users    81473536 2003-06-05 23:48 33.avi
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users    81210596 2003-06-06 00:22 34.avi
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     3352576 2003-05-01 23:54 op-n.avi
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     8005612 2003-05-03 08:45 op.wav
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     8005612 2003-05-03 08:45 op.wav.old
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     3469312 2003-06-02 01:42 op3.avi
> crystal:/data/anime/nadia2> LANG= ls -Al
> total 181376
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users    81473536 Jun  5 23:48 33.avi
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users    81210596 Jun  6 00:22 34.avi
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     3352576 May  1 23:54 op-n.avi
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     8005612 May  3 08:45 op.wav
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     8005612 May  3 08:45 op.wav.old
> -rw-r--r--    1 achurch  users     3469312 Jun  2 01:42 op3.avi

This looks like the proper behavior to me.  The '--disable-nls' option
disables only the native language support (basically, the LC_MESSAGES
part of the locale mechanism).  It doesn't disable all of the locale
mechanism, just the native-language part.  Date formats come from
LC_TIME, not LC_MESSAGES, so they're not affected by --disable-nls.

Perhaps you'd like 'configure' to have a '--disable-locale' option to
disable all locale processing, and always operate as if you're in the
C locale?  That might be useful, but it's a different animal from
'--disable-nls'.