Bug 308674

Summary:	KDE ignores LC_TIME variable
Product:	[Unmaintained] kdelibs	Reporter:	Kirill Gagarski <gagarin.gtn>
Component:	klocale	Assignee:	John Layt <jlayt>
Status:	RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	piny
Priority:	NOR
Version:	4.9.2
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Kirill Gagarski 2012-10-19 19:31:55 UTC

Hi.
This is my 'locale' output:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME=ru_RU.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

As you can see, I am using en_US locale for all except of time (I don't like AM/PM time format). The problem is that KDE using en_US for date and time too.
I understand that I can adjust date and time format in KDE System Settings. But shouldn't it be read from LC_TIME variable? Is there some reasons for current behaviour?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set LC_TIME different to other locale variables
2. Start KDE

Actual Results:  
The time format is taken from some other of locale variables.

Expected Results:  
The time format is that was set in item (1.).

Comment 1 Chusslove Illich 2012-10-20 09:41:39 UTC

The reason for current behavior is that KDE does not use the GNU libc as its
locale system. GNU libc (or its forks) is the system C library on many free
operating systems; LC_* variables are settings for its locale system. Long
time ago (I don't know the exact historical context), KDE decided to create
its own locale system, which it has kept up to today. At the moment, there
is no true link between GNU libc locale system and KDE locale system.

In KDE 3 this was quite apparent, by user having to select explicitly a KDE
locale on first login, regardless of what LC_* variables were. In KDE 4 a
small compromise was introduced, to automatically select a KDE locale based
on the language and country from LC_* variables. But it still holds that, if
the user manually selects a particular language and country in the KDE
System Settings, LC_* variables are ignored thereafter.

Some larger changes in KDE locale system are planned for "KDE 5"
(approximatelly speaking, there will be no thing called exactly this), but
_from what I understood so far, they don't include extending the use of GNU
libc locale settings.

Comment 2 Christoph Cullmann 2024-09-14 16:18:51 UTC

Hi,

kdelibs (version 4 and earlier) is no longer maintained since a few years.

KDE Frameworks 5 or 6 might already have implemented this wish.

If not, please re-open against the matching framework if feasible or against the application that shows the issue.

We then can still dispatch it to the right Bugzilla product or component.

Greetings
Christoph Cullmann