LANGUAGE is a GNU environment variable for localisation. It's used to filter through a list of locales, eg: LANGUAGE="ru_RU.en_AU.AU-UTF-8 will set LC_MESSAGES to Russian, but where not available, will revert to Australian English. LC_MESSAGES, to my knowledge, can only handle one locale specification and this could be awkward for people who need two or three - for example a German in Japan would prefer German messages, but could fall back on Japanese (and would prefer this to a fallback to English). Openoffice and Openoffice-ximian require the LANGUAGE variable to be set to values like ENUS etc., which means a person using the variable properly to actually set locale data has to re-export every time they emerge openoffice*, or stop using LANGUAGE properly altogether, both a big hassle. LANGAUGE for openoffice should be generated by gentoo parsing the currently set locale(s) via the gnu usage of LANGUAGE (if it is being employed) and then passing the appropriate setting to the openoffice compile. Information about the gnu LANGUAGE variable was found here: http://www.suse.de/~mfabian/suse-cjk/locales-env-var.html Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Expected Results: Recognise correct GNU locales. Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-x86-2004.2, gcc-3.4.3, glibc-2.3.4.20041102-r0, 2.6.10-rc1-mm4 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.10-rc1-mm4 i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2400+ Gentoo Base System version 1.6.6 ccache version 2.3 [enabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.15.92.0.2-r1 Headers: sys-kernel/linux26-headers-2.6.8.1-r1 Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r7 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -mtune=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -funroll-loops" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -mtune=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -funroll-loops" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache distlocks sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp:///ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/linux/Gentoo http://gentoo.scphost.com" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow 3dnowex X aac aalib acpi acpi4linux aim alsa apm audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bonobo caps cdinstall cdparanoia cdr cdrom cdrw codecs crypt cups curl dba dga directfb divx4linux dts dv dvd dvdr dvdread dvdrw encode f77 faac faad fbcon ffmpeg fftw flac foomaticdb fortran freetype ftp gd gdbm gif gimp gimp2 gnome gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal icq imlib imlib2 ipod ipv6 jack java javascript jp2 jpeg jpeg2k lcms libcaca libsamplerate libwww lirc live lzo mad matroska mikmod mime mmx mng motif mp3 mp4 mpeg mpeg4 mplayer msn nas ncurses network nls no_wxgtk1 nptl nptlonly offensive ogg oggvorbis openal oscar pam pdflib perl pic plotutils png ppds python qt quicktime radeon readline real recode rtc samba sdl slang sndfile soundtouch spell sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tga theora thumbnail tiff transcode truetype unicode usb vcdimager vorbis wmf x86 xml2 xpm xv xvid xvmc yahoo zlib video_cards_radeon"
I think the easiest way to fix this is probably to rename our LANGUAGE variable to OOLANGUAGE. Note by the way that it is possible to set the variable in /etc/make.conf so it doesn't need to be globally defined. The ebuild also defaults to US English so it's definition should not be an issue for those who wouldn't build a localised openoffice anyway.
Well definitely a change of variable is required, because otherwise it interfears with the locale. What about KDE's (and other apps') 'LINGUAS' variable? Perhaps LINGUAS should be used instead, or some sort of official way for setting your locale should be set up so everyone, on installation or whenever, has to set a locale which is then used to provide OOLANGUAGE and LINGUAS etc. variables internally? I set my locale in /etc/profile, but a few people have said this is dangerous (though people tend to say this).
wrong product.
Created attachment 48372 [details, diff] OpenOffice 1.1.4 ebuild $LANGUAGE patch Patch for the 1.1.4 ebuild to detect the language settings using the $LANGUAGE environment variable. The patch will parse through a string of multiple locales to find one that works, and error if it doesn't find one. I'm not an expert on locales, and this may not be the most efficient way. But it's something, and it works (I hope). ^_^;
We are now using LINGUAS for OOo, so this problem should be gnone
