Re: The environment variable $LANGUAGE

[Ming Hua <minghua-list@sbcglobal.net>]

On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 08:33:44AM +0100, Miroslav Kure wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 07:02:01PM -0600, Ming Hua wrote:
> > I have a question to the list:  What documentation should I read to
> > understand the environment variable $LANGUAGE,
> 
> info libc -> Message Translation -> The Uniform approach ->
>   Message catalogs with gettext -> Using gettextized software 
> 
> > and it's relationship with the ordinary locale variables ($LANG,
> > $LC_*, and $LC_ALL)?
> 
> If set, LANGUAGE has higher priority than LANG, LC_MESSAGES and even
> LC_ALL variable, but character *encoding* is still taken from LC_CTYPE.
> 
[example snipped]
> 
> So the best usage would be to use only locales with the same encoding,
> preferably UTF-8.

Thanks for the pointer and explanations, it's very helpful.

My main problem is that I use en_US.UTF-8 locale and prefer English
interfaces.  However occasionally I need to run programs in
LC_MESSAGES=zh_CN to see the translation results (I assume
LC_MESSAGES=zh_CN.UTF-8 has the same effect, as the encoding part
doesn't matter).  I think setting LANGUAGE to empty serves me best. :-)

Ming
2005.11.05