Solutions for LC_NUMERIC, was Re: [Python-Dev] Re: Be Honest about LC_NUMERIC [REPOST] (original) (raw)

Martin v. Löwis martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Sep 4 20:25:19 EDT 2003

Christian Reis <kiko at async.com.br> writes:

"On glibc-based systems, Python is safe from runtime changes in the LCNUMERIC locale category. On other platforms, changing LCNUMERIC at runtime may cause float conversion routines to fail. This may impact the Python interpreter internally."

I could accept such a limitation. However, I maintain that the aspects must be fully understood, and I agree with Guido that they must be documented in the documentation proper (i.e. as comments in the source code, or the user documentation).

So I suggest that you proceed with the PEP and the implementation as-is. The PEP would need to be enhanced to summarize this discussion (perhaps listing the alternatives that you just mentioned); the patch would need to be enhanced to be more simple, readable, and in the style of the rest of the Python source code, and would need to include documentation changes and test cases (although some test cases probably already exist).

Regards, Martin

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