Possible bug in glibc re locales

[John Darrington]

The LANGUAGE env var doesn't always seem to behave as documented.
Take the following example

bash-2.05a$ /lib/libc.so.6
GNU C Library stable release version 2.3.1, by Roland McGrath et al.
Copyright (C) 1992-2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Compiled by GNU CC version 3.2.3 20030228 (Debian prerelease).
Compiled on a Linux 2.4.20 system on 2003-03-22.
Available extensions:
        GNU libio by Per Bothner
        crypt add-on version 2.1 by Michael Glad and others
        linuxthreads-0.10 by Xavier Leroy
        BIND-8.2.3-T5B
        libthread_db work sponsored by Alpha Processor Inc
        NIS(YP)/NIS+ NSS modules 0.19 by Thorsten Kukuk
Report bugs using the `glibcbug' script to <address@hidden>.

bash-2.05a$ unset LANG
bash-2.05a$ unset LANGUAGE
bash-2.05a$ export LANG=de_DE
bash-2.05a$ cat asd
cat: asd: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

Fine.  The response was German.


Now use LANGUAGE to override:

bash-2.05a$ export LANGUAGE=en
bash-2.05a$ cat asd
cat: asd: No such file or directory


Good.  LANGUAGE overrode LANG and the answer was in English.

However, if we take another example:

bash-2.05a$ export LANGUAGE=de_DE
bash-2.05a$ export LANG=en
bash-2.05a$ cat laskdj
cat: laskdj: No such file or directory


Here, the answer is in English wheras it should have been German.
Is this a bug??

J'

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