Here's the problem. The very same collator for "de" is valid for "de-DE", "de-AT", and "de-CH". In ICU you actually get a functionally-equivalent object back, no matter which of these you ask for.
However, that collator is *also* valid for other countries where 'de' is official: de-LU, de-BE, de-LI. Moreover, it is *also* valid for countries with sizable German speaking populations, including de-US and de-BR. And, it is *also* valid for German as used in any other country: "de-FR", ..., even "de-AQ". That is, you would not expect any variation in collators between "de-DE" and "de-US". A German collator is equally valid for both. It is somewhat arbitrary where any given implementation draws the line in terms of indicating which locales a valid collator can be returned for. Mark *— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —* * * * [https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033] * On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 02:15, Norbert Lindenberg < [email protected]> wrote: > The set of locales returned by a getSupportedLocales method would have to > reflect what's actually supported by a Collator, NumberFormat, or > DateTimeFormat implementation, so I doubt we'd get to the millions. Many of > these 6000+ languages are spoken by fewer than 200 people, so certainly not > in 200+ regions. And even where languages are spoken in many countries, > there may not be defined regional variants: For example, I speak German and > live in the U.S., but I don't know of any defined de-US collation, number > format, or date format (in a German context, I'd use de-DE). > > If we let the application pass in the languages that it's interested in, > that would probably be based on what a user has requested, so rarely more > than 10 languages. If English, French, Spanish, and Arabic are on the list, > you might still get over 100 locales, but that's about it. > > Norbert > > > On Nov 28, 2011, at 17:37 , Shawn Steele wrote: > > > There are 6000+ languages, and presumably any of them could be spoken in > 200+ regions. There are additionally many variations of some of these > languages. So that's not a thousand locales, that's over a million > locales. Additionally there may be legitimate tags an application can > support that it may have been originally designed for. (Perhaps a new > language or region or variant) For an application that doesn't care much > about the input locale, that's a lot of room for variety. > > > > For applications that are only localized to a certain number of > languages, then perhaps a getSupportedLocalizations() would be manageable. > Again though, that scope is narrow and may be inappropriate to use in > other contexts. Eg: my app is localized to only English, but someone > uploaded French content, does that count? > > > > -Shawn > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Norbert Lindenberg > > Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 5:30 PM > > To: Eric Albright; Peter Constable; Shawn Steele > > Cc: es-discuss > > Subject: Re: Globalization API: supportedLocalesOf vs. > getSupportedLocales > > > > We invented the supportedLocalesOf method to let applications find out > which of its requested locales are supported by the implementation of a > service. A getSupportedLocales function that simply returns the locales > that the implementation actually supports would be easier to understand, > and could also be used by an application to implement its own locale > negotiation. If I remember correctly, we chose not to offer > getSupportedLocales primarily because the list returned might be huge - > possibly over 1000 locales. > > > > Maybe we should reconsider this? If an application really wants to have > a list of 1000 locales, why not let it have it? If we want the ability to > restrict the list, maybe there can be locale list as a parameter, and we > return only those supported locales for which a prefix is on the locale > list passed in? Or is there a more fundamental issue with > getSupportedLocales? > > > > Thanks, > > Norbert > > > > > > On Nov 21, 2011, at 11:12 , Nicholas C. Zakas wrote: > > > >> 2. supportedLocalesOf > >> > >> I find this method name strange - I've read it several times and am > still not sure I fully understand what it does. Perhaps > "getSupportedLocales()" is a better name for this method? (I always prefer > methods begin with verbs.) > > > > _______________________________________________ > > es-discuss mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > es-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss >
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