Re: ls default time style

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert writes:

> On the GNU system, the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable
> historically has been the way to say "I really want POSIX semantics,
> even if that conflicts with GNU semantics".  So, if POSIXLY_CORRECT is
> set, perhaps TIME_STYLE etc. should be ignored.  Otherwise, we'd have
> to tell people "if you really want POSIX semantics, you must set
> POSIXLY_CORRECT and you must also not set a bunch of other environment
> variables", which will be a pain for them as that list of environment
> variables grows.

I agree. That would solve the problems for programs or users that want
easy to parse "ls" output.

Now back to the human users. The same argument applies. We are telling
people that to get decent output in their language, and using their
locale conventions, the only variables they need to set is LANG (and
possibly LANGUAGE, for people who speak multiple languages). We don't
want to tell them to set LESSCHARSET, therefore "less" now obeys the
locale. We don't want to tell them that they need to call xterm with
option "-lc", therefore "xterm" now obeys the locale. We don't want to
tell them to set TIME_STYLE ...

Bruno