Help needed with a locale-related issue

[Francesco Poli <invernomuto@paranoici.org>]

Hello all,
while testing some odd locale configurations with the package
I maintain (apt-listbugs), I stumbled upon an awkward crash.
I am seeking the help of some knowledgeable Ruby expert, to understand
what's going on.

The crash may be reproduced with apt-listbugs version 0.1.14 or later
(which uses the ruby-unicode library to correctly compute the width of
UTF-8 strings).

  $ locale
  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  LANGUAGE=
  LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
  LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
  LC_TIME="en_US.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=
  $ apt-listbugs -v
  0.1.17

So far so good, everything works as expected.
But, if I try the following odd locale configuration (Italian language
with 'C' locale settings), I get a crash:

  $ LANGUAGE='it_IT:it' LC_ALL='C' locale
  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  LANGUAGE=it_IT:it
  LC_CTYPE="C"
  LC_NUMERIC="C"
  LC_TIME="C"
  LC_COLLATE="C"
  LC_MONETARY="C"
  LC_MESSAGES="C"
  LC_PAPER="C"
  LC_NAME="C"
  LC_ADDRESS="C"
  LC_TELEPHONE="C"
  LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
  LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
  LC_ALL=C
  $ LANGUAGE='it_IT:it' LC_ALL='C' apt-listbugs -v
  /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/aptlistbugs/logic.rb:390:in `width': "\xC3" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 (Encoding::UndefinedConversionError)
          from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/aptlistbugs/logic.rb:390:in `<class:SimpleViewer>'
          from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/aptlistbugs/logic.rb:387:in `<class:Viewer>'
          from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/aptlistbugs/logic.rb:381:in `<top (required)>'
          from /usr/lib/ruby/2.1.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
          from /usr/lib/ruby/2.1.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
          from /usr/bin/apt-listbugs:349:in `<main>'


The failing statements are:

    DeprecatedWarning = _("********** on_hold IS DEPRECATED. USE p INSTEAD to use pin **********")
    DeprecatedWarningHeader = "*" * Unicode.width(DeprecatedWarning)

If I understand correctly, what seems to happen is that:

  • the DeprecatedWarning string is assigned the Italian translation of
the English message

  • the English message is ASCII, while the Italian translation
includes some non-ASCII UTF-8 characters

  • ruby-gettext returns a non-UTF-8 string, since LC_CTYPE is 'C' (?)

  • ruby-unicode fails to compute the width of this string, since it
unsuccessfully attempts to convert it to UTF-8 (?)


Now, my question is: which package should be blamed for the crash?

Should I change the way I use ruby-unicode in apt-listbugs?
Or should I report a bug against package ruby-unicode? Or against
package ruby-gettext or ruby-locale?

Could some Ruby expert shed some light on this issue, please?
Thanks for your time!


P.S.: I am not subscribed to debian-ruby, hence please Cc me on replies.


-- 
 http://www.inventati.org/frx/
 There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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