From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org Received: from a-painless.mh.aa.net.uk ([81.187.30.51]:54209 "EHLO a-painless.mh.aa.net.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754388AbdLTRDi (ORCPT ); Wed, 20 Dec 2017 12:03:38 -0500 Received: from cartman.offog.org ([2001:8b0:83b:b53f::a]) by a-painless.mh.aa.net.uk with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1eRhFZ-0004tB-QF for util-linux@vger.kernel.org; Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:29:45 +0000 Received: from ats by cartman.offog.org with local (Exim 4.89_1) (envelope-from ) id 1eRhFX-0005Uv-Uc for util-linux@vger.kernel.org; Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:29:43 +0000 From: Adam Sampson To: util-linux@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: v2.32 cal(1) References: <20171219132906.74xm7nm4r3trr4qq@ws.net.home> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:29:43 +0000 In-Reply-To: <20171219132906.74xm7nm4r3trr4qq@ws.net.home> (Karel Zak's message of "Tue, 19 Dec 2017 14:29:06 +0100") Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Sender: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Karel Zak writes: > The problem is that year 1752 is very specific to British Empire and > for example Catholic Europe moved to the Gregorian calendar in year > 1582. ... > * later (after warning in release notes) we can make --gregorian as > the default The date of cal's switch is specified in POSIX as 1752, though: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cal.html (with a note that future versions may make this depend on the locale). So if the default is changed, it would be worth noting the deviation from POSIX in the man page, and maybe even defaulting to the old behaviour if POSIXLY_CORRECT is defined, as, e.g., coreutils does for other bits of dubious but mandated behaviour. I wonder if it might be more helpful just to report an error if cal is run for a year prior to 1926 without explicitly specifying which calendar to use? Thanks, -- Adam Sampson