Linux Locale – Define Custom Locale with Own Calendar Settings

linuxlocale

I want to define a custom locale with my own calendar settings. In this locale, we set a specified year as the first year. For example, if I define a en_UNIX.UTF-8, I'd like to set AD 1970 as year 1, and AD 1970 as year 2.

Is there any way to do this in Linux/BSD? I looked into system's locale files and found they only defined the first day of week, currency and so on except the first year of calendar…

Best Answer

Use of the gregorian calendar is hard-coded in glibc: https://github.com/rbdixon/glibc/blob/master/time/offtime.c#L58

So anything that uses the C library ("system") routines - gmtime_r, localtime_r and so on - to convert between seconds-since-the-epoch and broken-down-date format, will stick to the "standard" calendar (365 days in a year, Gregorian leap-year formula, 7 days per week...).

For code you write yourself, you could use the ICU Project's libraries and provide your own non-Gergorian calendar specification in the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository XML format.

I'm pretty sure you don't want to do that.

Related Solutions

Linux – locale: What is the LANGUAGE variable used for? (and when?)

It overrides to locale given in $LC_ALL with regards to gettext message catalogs. Otherwise, it's not used.

Linux – UTF-8 locale portability (and ssh)

It's an interesting question, but I think there may be a misconception in there about how variables are set up. When a secure shell session is initiated (ssh remotehost), what happens at the other end is an instantiation of a new shell with a separate environment. That is a fancy way of saying that the server starts a fresh shell. That new shell may or may not be configured with the same locale as your original local shell.

E.g

geee: ~
$ echo `locale |grep LANG` :: `date`
LANG=en_US.UTF-8 :: Mon Dec 3 07:04:00 CET 2012

$ ssh flode
flode: ~
$ echo `locale |grep LANG` :: `date`
LANG=nb_NO.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=nb_NO.UTF-8 :: ma. 03. des. 06:59:33 +0100 2012

In order to demonstrate this, I set up the locale on the remote shell for Norwegian by adding the following lines to the ~/.bash_profile file:

export     LANG=nb_NO.UTF-8
export LANGUAGE=nb_NO.UTF-8
export   LC_ALL=nb_NO.UTF-8

Similarly, you will have to set up the environment on the remote shell to do the same. Of course, other shells read different startup files such as ~/.zprofile for the Z shell.

The misconception I suspected lay in that the local variables (settings) are in no way forwarded. The remote shell has its own settings. In order to list the available languages on the remote host, be it a minimalistic BusyBox shell or a full-blown GNU OS, use the locale command with the -a switch (as noted in the question). Any of the printed lines may be used as a locale setting for that environment.

As for the first question, the default locale that any shell starts with is usually configured in a central place such as /etc/profile. Most login shells read this file on startup.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – locale: What is the LANGUAGE variable used for? (and when?)

Linux – UTF-8 locale portability (and ssh)

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