Re: Localization of libc and number handling

[Andreas Heppel]

On 2003-06-23 14:20:28 +0200 Alexander Malmberg <alexander@malmberg.org> wrote:

> Andreas Heppel wrote:
<snip>

> I'm not sure you should rely on being able to parse what -description
> returns, but I think its behavior is correct. From what I've seen, all
> methods that deal with locale and don't have an explicit locale argument
> use the nil/default/c locale, so I'd expect -description to do this as
> well.
The thing is, not I am relying on -description, but -floatValue of NSCell does 
(more or less, that is). Tracing this call down into the depths of GNUstep 
ends up with -description, which, as you already expect, uses nil as locale.
Unfortunately, it is not me (or in this case Enrico), who is mixing up libc 
and GNUstep, but it's GNUstep itself, as the method -floatValue, for instance, 
of an NSString uses atof() on the value returned by -lossyCString. And 
-description comes into play, for instance, in NSCell's -setObjectValue. It 
could be avoided (if I understand the code properly) by employing a formatter 
for the cell. I haven't tried this, yet.
No, I just checked NSNumberFormatter. It simply returns, guess what, 
-description for the object.
I looks a bit incomplete.
Nevertheless, IMHO, an NSNumber should take into account the user's locale 
when building it's description. At least it should take into account the 
(first) value in NSLanguages, in the hope that this is coherent with the LANG 
setting.

> > The question is, how can a consistent handling of locales between GNUstep and
> > the libc be achieved?
>
> It can't. GNUstep can't change the locale or rely on it having any safe
> values. I'd suggest either using only libc functions (which means that
> you get to manage the libc locale yourself), or using only GNUstep
> methods (which are supposed to use the OpenStep locale handling, but see
> http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailbug&bug_id=3519&group_id=99 ).
How does OpenStep locale handling work?
I am not surprised at all about this error report, as in the depths og GNUstep 
libc functions are used (which are localized).


Cheers,
Andreas

--
Andreas Heppel

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