You don't want to change the locale, rather the message language. That
is not a locale, and e.g.
LANGUAGE=en
is the correct form.
See
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-patched/R-admin.html#Localization-of-messages
for what may be possible during a session: nothing is guaranteed.
Documented behaviour is never a bug: in this case you are using OS
services and it depends on the OS (and as the manual says, on precisely
what versions of the support software the OS is using).
I see
> a
Error: object 'a' not found
> Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "zh_CN.UTF-8")
[1] "zh_CN.UTF-8"
> a
错误: 找不到对象'a'
> Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "en_GB.UTF-8")
[1] "en_GB.UTF-8"
> a
Error: object 'a' not found
on Fedora 20.
On 12/01/2015 06:19, Chel Hee Lee wrote:
Could anyone kindly guide me how to change locale? Any advice would be
greatly appreciated. What I am trying to do is to see if messages are
correctly in a given locale. The environment variables are:
> sessionInfo()
R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C
[3] LC_TIME=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_CA.UTF-8
[5] LC_MONETARY=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_CA.UTF-8
[7] LC_PAPER=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C
[9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
* Since I do not create any objects yet, the following message must be
shown when typing the alphabet 'a'.
> a
Error: object 'a' not found
> Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
LANG LANGUAGE
"en_CA.UTF-8" "en_CA:en_US:en"
> Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
[1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>
I am happy with this result. Now, I'd like to see messages in Chineses.
> Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "zh_CN.UTF-8")
[1] "zh_CN.UTF-8"
> a
Error: object 'a' not found
The message is still shown in English; thus, I am changing the value of
'LANGUAGE'.
> Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="zh_CN.UTF-8")
> a
错误: 找不到对象'a'
> Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
LANG LANGUAGE
"en_CA.UTF-8" "zh_CN.UTF-8"
> Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
[1] "zh_CN.UTF-8"
>
Now, I'd like to use messages in English again. At this time, I changed
the value of LANGUAGE rather than LC_MESSAGES.
> Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="en_CA.UTF-8")
> a
错误: 找不到对象'a'
I still see this message in Chinese so that I change 'LC_MESSAGES'.
> Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "en_CA.UTF-8")
[1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
> a
Error: object 'a' not found
> Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
LANG LANGUAGE
"en_CA.UTF-8" "en_CA.UTF-8"
> Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
[1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>
Thus, should I set the same value on both 'LANGUAGE' and 'LC_MESSAGES'
in order to change messages in a given locale? However, it is
questionable. Please see the following example (messages in Japanese):
> Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="ja_JP.UTF-8")
> a
エラー: オブジェクト 'a' がありません
> Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
LANG LANGUAGE
"en_CA.UTF-8" "ja_JP.UTF-8"
> Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
[1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>
> Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="en_CA.UTF-8")
> a
エラー: オブジェクト 'a' がありません
> Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
LANG LANGUAGE
"en_CA.UTF-8" "en_CA.UTF-8"
> Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
[1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
> a
エラー: オブジェクト 'a' がありません
>
Is this a bug? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Chel Hee Lee
______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
--
Brian D. Ripley, rip...@stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford
1 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3TG, UK
______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
