[O] date function in table formula does not understand German date stamps

[Viktor Rosenfeld]

Hi,

I use the function `date' in a table formula to convert org date stamps to
integers for further processing. However, after switching Emacs to a German
locale, this no longer works. Consider the table below:

| Stamp            | date   |
|------------------+--------|
| [2012-10-31 Wed] | 734808 |
| [2012-10-31 Mi]  | #ERROR |
#+TBLFM: $2=date(<$1>)

Org mode generally works fine with the German version of the date stamp, i.e.,
it is picked up in the agenda and deadline warnings work as expected. However,
the `date' function in a table formula does not work. My Emacs inserts the
German version of the date stamp after I've added the following file as
`.MacOSX/environment.plist': 

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" 
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd";>
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
      <key>LANG</key>
      <string>de_DE.UTF-8</string>
      <key>LC_ALL</key>
      <string>de_DE.UTF-8</string>
    </dict>
    </plist>

This was necessary to make Cocoa Emacs correctly process filenames with umlauts.

Any idea how the date function can be made locale-aware? Or is there another
alternative for this calculation?

Thanks,
Viktor