Bug#311259: error and omission in documentation of LANGUAGE

[barbier@mp4h.org (Denis Barbier)]

On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 10:59:29AM +0200, Mirko Parthey wrote:
> Package: glibc-doc
> Version: 2.3.2.ds1-22
> 
> LANGUAGE seems to have no effect unless LANG is set to something other
> than C. I would propose to document this behaviour in the libc reference
> manual, where LANGUAGE is explained.

This documentation states:
     At the program start the default domain is `messages', and the
  default locale is "C".  The `setlocale' call sets the locale according
  to the user's environment variables; remember that correct functioning
  of `gettext' relies on the correct setting of the `LC_MESSAGES' locale
  (for looking up the message catalog) and of the `LC_CTYPE' locale (for
  the character set conversion).

So basically you should not set LC_MESSAGES to C (either explicitly or
through LANG or LC_ALL variables) if you want localized output.  There
are some discussions at http://bugs.debian.org/308853

Denis