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ID Category Severity Type Date Submitted Last Update
0001790 [1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2] Base Definitions and Headers Editorial Clarification Requested 2023-12-01 21:00 2024-01-18 17:12
Reporter steffen View Status public  
Assigned To
Priority normal Resolution Accepted As Marked  
Status Resolved  
Name steffen
Organization
User Reference
Section langinfo.h
Page Number 276
Line Number 9587 pp, 9611 pp
Interp Status ---
Final Accepted Text See Note: 0006630
Summary 0001790: More info on *ALT* constants
Description The *ALT* series is documented as

  alternative appropriate
and
  alternative name

which is completely non-descriptive.

It seems the intent is that ALTMON_* is

  Long month names, in the grammatical form used when the month is named by itself.

Ditto abbreviated.

Ie in the wild (FreeBSD, Linux) and on the Unicode CLDR, but let me just quote a commit message of christos@FreeBSD.org i have seen fly by today, a bit abbreviated:

    The CLDR specification [1] defines three possible month formats:

    - Abbreviation (e.g Jan, Ιαν)
    - Full (e.g January, Ιανουαρίου)
    - Standalone (e.g January, Ιανουάριος)

    Many languages use different case endings depending on whether the month
    is referenced as a standalone word (nominative case), or in date context
    (genitive, partitive, etc.). sort(1)'s -M option currently sorts months
    by testing input against only the abbrevation format, which is
    essentially a substring of the full format. While this works fine for
    languages like English, where there are no cases, for languages where
    there is a different case ending between the abbreviation/full and
    standalone formats, it is not sufficient.

    For example, in Greek, "May" can take the following forms:

    Abbreviation: Μαΐ (genitive case)
    Full: Μαΐου (genitive case)
    Standalone: Μάιος (nominative case)

    If we use the standalone format in Greek, sort(1) will not able to match
    "Μαΐ" to "Μάιος" and the sort will fail.

    This change makes sort(1) test against all three formats. It also works
    when the input contains mixed formats.

    [1] https://cldr.unicode.org/translation/date-time/date-time-patterns [^]
Desired Action If so intended, please adjust the descriptions of the *ALT* series to match CLDR and be more self-descriptive as their are today.
Tags tc1-2024
Attached Files

- Relationships

-  Notes
(0006622)
shware_systems (reporter)
2024-01-15 18:33

I thought the primary names were how locales represented the Gregorian calendar in a particular language, and ALT names were for how they might represent an alternate calendar like Chinese, Hebrew or even Mayan, each in a single grammar form.

Handling multiple grammar cases is way more an unspecified extension that would likely need a formal proposal modifying XBD 7 to add to the standard, not simply modifying this header arbitrarily.
(0006625)
steffen (reporter)
2024-01-17 00:00

I do not think so. (I would not have thought that ALT does the great to handle entire calendar systems?)
(0006629)
shware_systems (reporter)
2024-01-18 17:08

Apologies, I was confusing the ALT and ERA constants, and it is ERA that represents other calendars. XBD 7 is explicit ALT strings are for the nominitive case, if a language has one, and no ALT is for the genitive case. The standard doesn't address additional cases like partitive so perhaps a proposal for that is warranted.
(0006630)
nick (manager)
2024-01-18 17:11

D4 page and line numbers.
Add to Application Usage, page 277 after line 9645:
    
For languages having both a genitive (when used with a day number) and a nominative (no day number) case, the "alternative" month names described here are for use when a nominative case is required, see XREF 7.3.5.1 LC_TIME Locale Definition.

- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2023-12-01 21:00 steffen New Issue
2023-12-01 21:00 steffen Name => steffen
2023-12-01 21:00 steffen Section => langinfo.h
2023-12-01 21:00 steffen Page Number => 276
2023-12-01 21:00 steffen Line Number => 9587 pp, 9611 pp
2024-01-15 18:33 shware_systems Note Added: 0006622
2024-01-17 00:00 steffen Note Added: 0006625
2024-01-18 17:08 shware_systems Note Added: 0006629
2024-01-18 17:11 nick Note Added: 0006630
2024-01-18 17:12 nick Interp Status => ---
2024-01-18 17:12 nick Final Accepted Text => See Note: 0006630
2024-01-18 17:12 nick Status New => Resolved
2024-01-18 17:12 nick Resolution Open => Accepted As Marked
2024-01-18 17:12 nick Tag Attached: tc1-2024


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