2009/12/11 Andreas Saeger <[email protected]>:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>>
>> Please, please, this is killing me.
>> $ date +%x
>> 2009-12-08
>>
>> However, Calc insists on using the mm/dd/yy year format in new
>> documents. The settings under Language are all Default. What must I do
>> to have OOo respect the locale settings?
>>
>> I know that this issue has been addressed tens of time on the list but
>> I cannot find the "answer" in the archives.There is a bug (or rather,
>> several) on the issue but I think that I saw a method or workaround
>> posted once on the list but I cannot find it.
>>
>>
> Your locale setting is "Default" and your operating system locale is US
> English.

No, my locale is not US English:
$ locale
LANG=he_IL.utf8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="he_IL.utf8"
LC_NUMERIC="he_IL.utf8"
LC_TIME=en_DK.utf8
LC_COLLATE="he_IL.utf8"
LC_MONETARY="he_IL.utf8"
LC_MESSAGES="he_IL.utf8"
LC_PAPER="he_IL.utf8"
LC_NAME="he_IL.utf8"
LC_ADDRESS="he_IL.utf8"
LC_TELEPHONE="he_IL.utf8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="he_IL.utf8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="he_IL.utf8"
LC_ALL=

I figured that I could get away with not posting that as I posted this:
$ date +%x
2009-12-08

> The program accepts your locale using its own setup for this
> particular locale, so your document will look exactly the same on other
> systems.

I am not sure that I am following you. Do you mean that Calc ignores
the formatting options of locale ab_CD.utf8 and substitutes it's own
formatting based on the name of the locale?


> It makes no sense to use the current system's customized locale
> settings when documents have to be exchangable across systems.

ODF, like DOC, is intended to describe documents meant to be
reprocessed for printing. ODF is _not_ intended for electronic
document exchange (neither is DOC). The use of the format for this
purpose is abuse of the format, in fact you will find that different
printer drivers, default paper sizes, and other factors will affect
how and ODF (or DOC) files appear on the screen. The format intended
for electronic document exchange is PDF, and even that is a subset of
PS which also describes pages for printing.


> There is no
> bug, since the number formatting behaves exactly as it has been designed
> intentionally.

There may or may not be a programming error (see my locale) however
this is unexpected behaviour with no obvious solution. Programming
error or poor design decision, it is a bug.


> Simply use the given formatting facilities, styles in particular, in order
> to override the plain defaults.

That is not practical when I have many new documents to create daily.
Neither is a "default document". I need an application setting, not a
particular file setting.


> Btw: The format of a number is completely irrelevant as long as the value is
> the correct number. No calculation result depends on number formatting.
> 8/12, 12/8, 2009/12/08, it's all the same day number 40155 or 4015500%,
> $40155.00, 40.155,00€, ...
>

That is nice for the computer, but the human needs to understand the
data. When I read 9/2/2005 I see it as the ninth of February. So far
as I am concerned, it could be nothing but. I really don't know or
care how the computer sees it.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

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