Re: coreutils-6.0: numerous test failures on MacOS X

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> I think this is the right sort of fix, though I'm puzzled as to why
> the code set LC_ALL to the empty string in the first place.
> ...
> Do you recall why they were set to '' back then?

Yes, my archives tell me: On 2000-10-15, I sent Jim a mail, reporting
testsuite failures, with a patch that set LANGUAGE= LC_ALL=C for two
particular commands.

On 2000-10-18, Jim replied:
> I've fixed it slightly differently:
> ...
> +# Make sure the programs use C-locale formats/translations.
> +LANGUAGE=C; export LANGUAGE
> +LC_ALL=C; export LC_ALL
> +LANG=C; export LANG

On 2000-10-21, I replied:
> "C" is not a valid language specifier. "LANGUAGE=''; export LANGUAGE"
> or "unset LANGUAGE" is better.

On 2000-10-23, Jim replied:
> Thanks!  I've changed them all -- in fileutils, at least.

And since at that time I wasn't aware of a system for which LC_ALL=''
has different effects than LC_ALL=C (and POSIX:2001 was not out),
I didn't object to LC_ALL=''.

Bruno