Re: setlocale.3: Wording issues

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>]

Hi Alex,

On 1/7/21 7:32 PM, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> I don't understand what this paragraph means, I think it needs some wfix.
> 
> Around setlocale.3:179:
> [
>        On  startup  of  the main program, the portable "C" locale is
>        selected as default.  A program may be made portable  to  all
>        locales by calling:
> 
>            setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
> 
>        after  program  initialization,  by using the values returned
>        from a localeconv(3) call for  locale-dependent  information,
>        by  using the multibyte and wide character functions for text
>        processing if MB_CUR_MAX > 1, and by  using  strcoll(3),  wc‐
>        scoll(3) or strxfrm(3), wcsxfrm(3) to compare strings.
> 
> <<<Especially these last 2 lines
> 
> ]

I see what you mean. I had to read that a few times to parse it.
It looks like the text was added in 1999. I think the following
clarifies and preserves the meaning:

[[
       On startup of the main program, the portable "C" locale is select‐
       ed  as  default.  A program may be made portable to all locales by
       calling:

           setlocale(LC_ALL, "");

       after program initialization, and then:

       (a) using the values returned from a localeconv(3)  call  for  lo‐
           cale-dependent information;

       (c) using the multibyte and wide character functions for text pro‐
           cessing if MB_CUR_MAX > 1; and

       (c) using strcoll(3), wcscoll(3) or strxfrm(3), wcsxfrm(3) to com‐
           pare strings.
]]

What do you think?

Thanks,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/