Re: [gettext] setlocale() problem - bugfix, patch

[Bruno Haible]

Mark K. Kim wrote:
> It is a Linux/glibc system (kernel 2.2.23-rp1, libc-2.1.3), but I'm in an
> unfortunate situation to have to install libintl separately.  Although all
> the necessary locale files seem to exist, setlocale() doesn't understand
> the "ja_JP" locale I'm testing (returns NULL)

glibc-2.1.x didn't support multibyte locales, like ja_JP. This support was
only added in glibc-2.2. That's the most likely reason of why setlocale()
fails.

> I tried to recompile glibc except my quota is too small to recompile
> glibc, so I'm recompiling just libintl, and telling my program to use that
> instead of glibc's libintl

ok, I see the contortions that you are doing. Yes in that case, installing
libintl is appropriate, and your patch makes sense for your particular
situation.

>   - Is there a situation when the patch I've submitted would break
>     something?

No, but it would be clearer if you only changed the condition under which
HAVE_LOCALE_NULL is defined.

>   - Why is it a bad idea to use separate libintl on glibc system?

Installing libintl on glibc systems is bad because the preferred way
to handle the situation is to upgrade to a glibc >= 2.2 :-)

Bruno