Issue 0235: "C" locale collating behaviour not defined

This issue has been automatically converted from the original issue lists and some formatting may not have been preserved.

Authors: AFNOR (Antoine Leca)
Date: 2000-10-18
Submitted against: C99
Status: Closed
Converted from: summary-c99.htm, dr_235.htm

Summary

Usually, the locale-specific behaviour for the library functions is specified when it comes to the "C" locale. A noteworthy and well-known exception to that the set of printing characters is not restricted. However, other points that may be seen as overviews. In 7.21.4.3 (strcoll), 7.24.4.4.2 (wcscoll), 7.21.4.5 (strxfrm) and 7.24.4.4.4 (wcsxfrm), no behaviour is specified in the case of the "C" locale.

It is customary to default to respectively strcmp for strcoll, wcscmp for wcscoll, and the identity function for the latter two, but this is not presently required.

Suggested responses

There are basically two choices:

• left things as they are, since use of strcoll and alii in the "C" locale is not expected to be a noteworthy situation
• correct the Standard along the customary way

Suggested Technical Corrigendum

In 7.21.4.3, add a new sentence (or a new paragraph) under Description which says:

In the "C" locale, this function operates in the same way as strcmp does.

In 7.24.4.4.2, add a new sentence in paragraph 2 (or a new paragraph) which says:

In the "C" locale, this function operates in the same way as wcscmp does.

In 7.21.4.5, add a new sentence in paragraph 2 (or a new paragraph) which says:

In the "C" locale, this function copies at most n characters from the string pointed by s2 to s1.

In 7.24.4.4.4, add a new sentence in paragraph 2 (or a new paragraph) which says:

In the "C" locale, this function copies at most n wide characters from the string pointed by s2 to s1.

Comment from WG14 on 2002-03-03:

Committee Response

The committee decided to make no change. The standard does not require that strcoll() and strcmp() perform the same in the C locale.