Unable to add tasks in calendar, get "invalid time value" when clicking save

Currently, glibc displays dates in the pl_PL locale as:

pon sie 6 01:23:45 CEST 1984

This format violates several conventions for date abbreviations in the Polish
language. I include a patch against the current CVS localedata with the
following changes:

* non-standard weekday abbreviations are replaced with standard ones
* non-standard month abbreviations are replaced with standard ones (based on
Roman numerals)
* middle-endian format (never used in Poland) is replaced with the little-endian
one (by far the most popular)
* standard padding is introduced, i.e. h:m:s are zero-padded, day of the month
is not padded
* fields are properly separated

With the patch, dates are displayed as:

Pn, 6 VIII 1984, 01:23:45 CEST

which matches the most common usage.

Please notice that the abbreviations are no longer fixed-width. Since this is
also the case in several other locales, I suppose it is not a problem.

Created attachment 1267
LC_TIME fixes for pl_PL locale

Subject: Re: New: LC_TIME for pl_PL doesn't match standard usage

On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 01:47:16AM -0000, inkerman42 at gmail dot com wrote:
> Currently, glibc displays dates in the pl_PL locale as:
>
> pon sie 6 01:23:45 CEST 1984
>
> This format violates several conventions for date abbreviations in the Polish
> language. I include a patch against the current CVS localedata with the
> following changes:
>
> * non-standard weekday abbreviations are replaced with standard ones
> * non-standard month abbreviations are replaced with standard ones (based on
> Roman numerals)
> * middle-endian format (never used in Poland) is replaced with the little-endian
> one (by far the most popular)
> * standard padding is introduced, i.e. h:m:s are zero-padded, day of the month
> is not padded
> * fields are properly separated
>
> With the patch, dates are displayed as:
>
> Pn, 6 VIII 1984, 01:23:45 CEST
>
> which matches the most common usage.

well, you could use that for the long format, but it seems not
convenient for the short (abbreviated) format. Both day names and month
names are variable length.

My understanding is also that day and month names in Polish are spelled
with small initial letters.

> Please notice that the abbreviations are no longer fixed-width. Since this is
> also the case in several other locales, I suppose it is not a problem.

The recommendation is that the abbreviated format be fixed
format/lenght, as this is intended to be used in log messages.

best regards
Keld

You have to provide evidence. Provide URLs of official documents, railway
publications, newspapers.

[Sorry for delay, I have been on vacation for the last few days.]

First, some background to answer Mr. Drepper's and Mr. Simonsen's questions.

Weekdays:

Weekday abbreviations are not part of any official standard. They ones described
above are, however, used nearly universally in calendars.

Examples of use:

* http://kalendarz.pwn.pl/ [calendar of PWN (Polish Scientific Publishers),
publisher of the largest and most authoritative Polish-language encyclopedias
and dictionaries]
* http://lot.pl/ [timetable of LOT, the largest Polish airline]

Please note that these abbreviations can only appear standalone or as part of a
standalone date (and yes, while Polish weekday names are lowercase, they are
not). To abbreviate weekday names in an intertextual context (which would be
quite uncommon), one would have to use an ad hoc abbreviation following standard
rules, i.e. match the case of the word, end with a consonant, and be followed by
a dot, e.g. 'poniedziałek' could be abbreviated as 'pn.', 'pon.', or 'poniedz.'.

Date:

Modern dictionaries of Polish language allow the following date abbreviations:

* 6 VIII 1984 (older dictionaries also allowed 6.VIII.1984)
* 6.8.1984, or 6.08.1984, or 06.08.1984

The use of other abbreviations (such as 1984.08.06) is explicitly discouraged,
unless neccessitated by specialized data processing requirements.

Online reference:

* http://so.pwn.pl/zasady.php?id=629747 [ortographical dictionary of PWN]

Examples of use:

* http://www.senat.gov.pl/senatrp/noty/dzieje.pdf [history of Senat, upper
chamber of the Polish parlament)]
* http://edukacja.sejm.gov.pl/historia_sejmu/ [history of Sejm, lower chamber of
the Polish parlament)]
* http://rjp.pl/?mod=uchwaly&id=2 [resolutions of the Polish Language Council,
official standarizing organization for the Polish language]
* http://intercity.pl/scripts/train/index.php?action=train_list [timetable of
PKP, the largest Polish railway company]
* http://lot.pl/ [timetable of LOT]

> The recommendation is that the abbreviated format be fixed
> format/lenght, as this is intended to be used in log messages.

Ah, I wasn't aware of this recommendation. Perhaps it might be a good idea to
document it somewhere? Is there some particular reason why so many locales don't
follow it?

Which formats exactly should be fixed-width? For d_fmt, there should be no
problem. Weekday abbreviations can be made fixed-width as well, by using a
variant with N replaced with Nd. And while it isn't exactly common to mix
weekday abbreviations and numeric date format, I guess it can be done, too. How
about date_fmt? It's not fixed-width in the POSIX locale, either.

Has there been any activity on this bug recently? There has been no comment from
any of the developers for several months. I had submitted the requested
references, is that enough? My question about the formats, and which of them, if
any, should be changed to fixed-width hasn't been answered, either. Is there
anything else I can do to help?

The weekday abbreviations proposed by the above patch seem also to be identical
with ones used by Windows. (This is what the gtk2 calendar widget uses on
Windows XP, at least).

I applied the patch.

Description of problem:
After upgrade from fc6, date +%c gives the following (pl_PL):
N, 3 VI 2007, 02:27:59
before, it was looking like that
nie, 3 cze 2007, 02:27:59
I think that the second format is much more readable.

This change introduced a bug with strptime function.
D_FMT format is set to "%-d %b %Y" and strptime
function does not seem to support "-" in "%-d"
format specifier. This leads to a problem described
here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=243513

There are, indeed, two bugs in strptime() which prevent it from parsing d_fmt
correctly. Filed as:

* http://sources.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4772
* http://sources.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4773

There's significant uproar due to the month abbreviations change to roman
numerals. Though theoretically correct, it is not acceptable to the community at
large, and there are standards and expert opinions in favour of three-letter
abbreviations. Weekday abbreviations and field separator changes are under
debate, too. See bug 4789 for more details.

I think the Fedora should patch the glibc because the upstream does not want to
do it.
File to patching: <path_to_sourcedir>/localedata/locales/pl_PL (after
installation: /usr/share/i18n/locales/pl_PL ).

Reasons:
- at now the abmon is archaic mothod of abbreviation
- there are problems with applications (e.g. calendar in evolution)
- now it is useless and not user-friendly
The polish experts opinion says that the previous method of abreviating days and
months IS correct in computer industry.

I think something like Wto, 25 Sie 2007 looks a bit better.

Please revert pl_PL-LC_TIME.patch ASAP. Someone made a joke on you. This archaic
date stamping using roman month numbers was never officially approved, never in
widespread use. It is only used if author of a document wanted to gain artistic
effect. That is why roman numbering of months is usually found in documents
together with Gothic fonts and Anno Domini A.D. prefix before date.

I'm sure glibc maintainers implemented this patch having good will in mind. Next
time before applying such patch please ask Polish Linux translation teams if
future localization patches are not a hostile joke.

This patch make Polish Linux community suffer (broken apps, logs, errors in data
processing). This patch is proof of concept how big negative impact can have
single person on whole community.

This patch breaks national standards:
PN-EN 28601:2002 which is the same as ISO 8601:2004
http://www.pkn.pl/index.php?a=show&m=katalog&id=463318&page=1
here is free access via wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

The PN-EN 28601:2002 (ISO 8601:2004) is required format for data sorting in data
processing machines. Example: 2007-09-24

In real life (government documents, administration, commerce) for comfortable
user view dd-MM-CCYY format is used. Where:
dd - day in two digits format
MM - month in two digits format
CC - century in two digits format
YY - year in two digits format
Example: 24-09-2007
On paper documents instead of dash "-" separator a "." dot can be found. However
because of growing computerization of country administration and increasing
number of personal computer users dash becomes more popular over dot because it
is better visible on screen and after printing.

To all maintainers (no matter if it is glibc or other project): Please always
verify all localization patches by sending them (in human understandable format)
to official translation teams of a given Language/Region. This will keep Linux
safe and not compromised.

How about something like that:
Pon, 6 sie 1984 01:23:45 CEST
Looks nicer, has non-broken endianess and fixed-width names.

We now have 3 different groups, each pushing a different format.
For %b wrz vs. IX vs. 9, and then various different layouts of D_T_FMT, D_FMT
and T_FMT.
If you want this changed, can you (or ask somebody else to) please organize an
internet poll among Polish Linux users, which states all the various proposed
changes and let people choose from them, then invite people in various LUGs,
distros, those commenting in the various bugzilla bugs about this, etc.

I organize poll http://karlik.nonlogic.org/blog/wpisy/ogolne/daty-w-glibc-sonda .

ISO is an already established, widely used, adopted by PN (Polska Norma/Polish
Norm) standard. Using everything else, like fancy roman formatting, is useless
and troublesome.

There has not been a lot of interest about poll, but I think I can sum it up.
In conclusion of poll about day abbs:
# pon, wto, śro, czw, pią, sob, nie (47%, 425 Votes)
# Pn, Wt, Śr, Cz, Pt, So, Nd, (27%, 249 Votes)
# pn., wt., śr., czw., pt., sob., ndz. (10%, 95 Votes)
# PN,WT,SR,CZW,PT,SO,ND (5%, 48 Votes)
# pon., wto., śro., czw., pią., sob., nie. (4%, 38 Votes)
# Po,Wt,Śr,Czw,Pt,So,N (3%, 25 Votes)
# inna (podaj w komentarzu) (2%, 18 Votes) <= in comments are e.g. "pn, wt, śr,
cz, pt, so, nd"
# pon., wt., śr., czw., piąt., sob., niedz. (1%, 11 Votes)
Well... in the glibc should be these abbreviations:
nie
pon
wto
śro
czw
pią
sob

Abbreviations of months:
# trzy pierwsze litery (sty,lut,mar,kwi,maj,cze,lip,sie,wrz,paź,lis,gru) (81%,
519 Votes)
# rzymskie liczby (I,II,III,IV,V,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X,XI,XII) (17%, 108 Votes)
# inna zgodna z normami (podaj w komentarzu) (3%, 17 Votes)
So in the glibc should be these abbreviations:
sty
lut
mar
kwi
maj
cze
lip
sie
wrz
paź
lis
gru

The D_FMT:
# liczbowa arabska z uzupełniającym zerem (01,02…12), %d.%m.%Y, np. 01.01.1970
(62%, 528 Votes)
# z użyciem skrótów miesięcy, %d %b %Y, np. 01 I 1970, 01 sty 1970 (36%, 303 Votes)
# inna (podaj w komentarzu) (3%, 22 Votes) <= most of these votes are for iso-8601
I did not organize more polls (e.g. for D_T_FMT). I think good idea is to not
change D_T_FMT (IMHO there should be change only abbs not *FMT, but I made a
poll as you wish).

I've made changes upstream in cvs.

I think I can close the bug. :)

Sorry for digging up a bug closed almost 2 months ago, but I have just installed
F8 (earlier had FC6) and noticed that "locale's date representation" (date +%x)
had been changed.
In previous versions there was %Y-%m-%d (e.g. 2007-12-20), now %d.%m.%Y
(20.12.2007). At it was detailed in already mentioned bug:
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3156#11
in Poland accepted standard is PN-EN 28601:2002 (aka ISO_8601).
http://www.pkn.pl/index.php?a=show&m=katalog&id=463318&page=1 (Polish Committee
for Standarization)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
which defines date as 2007-12-20.

Because there was no question about that date format in Karol's poll (it appears
only in the first question about fixed number of digits with leading zeros vs.
that with months abbreviation (like 01 I 1970, 01 sty 1970)) I suspect that it
could be changed accidentally in Fedora version and unnecessary breaks standard.

It was not included, since it is an international format that can be obtained
easily. There are comments about that in one of the sourceware bugs iirc.

(In reply to comment #11)
> PN-EN 28601:2002 which is the same as ISO 8601:2004
> http://www.pkn.pl/index.php?a=show&m=katalog&id=463318&page=1

Here is something for you to criticise:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_by_country#Poland>

*** Bug 260998 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
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Marked for reference. Resolved as fixed @bugzilla.