Re: Automating of localizations

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>]

[Gunnar Wolf]
> I am currently working on adding es_MX (Mexico) to it...

Thank you.  Patch is received.  I'll apply as soon as possible.

> I got a question (and, sorry, I have not really diven into it, it
> might be quite simple: In conffiles.d/timezone you list many
> possible timezones for each locale configuration. However, es_MX
> spans some different timezones (three basic timezones, plus some
> subtleties as at least one state not participating in the daylight
> savings). Most people would be happy with America/Mexico_City, but
> obviously this does not make someone in Mexico/Tijuana happy.

I am aware of the problem.  That is why I made the timezone an array
and not a single entry.  But I am not sure how to properly handle
this, that is why I just pick the first one in the array as the
default. :)

> What should I do?

You should start by listing all valid time zones for the locale.

The code need to be changed to handle multiple time zones properly.  I
suggest picking one of the zones as the default, but accepting any of
the zones in the list when checking if the currently set zone is
correct.  This would set a fairly reasonable default and leave it to
the user to change it if the default is wrong.  If the user do change
the default, later runs will not overwrite the selected zone.

Another way would be to add a debconf question, and ask which one of
the relevant zones to select.

Either way, we need to modify the code in addition to listing all the
relevant zones.