Wrong date format on non-English locales

[mraandtux]

 * Cinnamon version: 4.4.5
 * Distribution: Mint 19.3 (updated from 19.2)
 * Graphics hardware *and* driver used: just Intel
 * 64 bit

Issue
Wrong date format, not as per LC_TIME=zh_CN.UTF-8

Steps to reproduce

*Change locale other than English (US)
*Check the calendar applet or uncheck "Internet time" box on Date & Time setting to see the date format

Expected behaviour

The previous Cinnamon version that shipped with 19.2 DOES NOT occur with this bug.

[clefebvre]

can you paste the output of locale and apt version libcinnamon-desktop4?

[clefebvre]

Also, write down in Chinese the expected date and explain its components (month, week, day..) so we can troubleshoot what's happening.

[mraandtux]

My libcinnamon-desktop4 version is 4.4.1, the locale command shows zh_CN.UTF-8 is on strings except LANGUAGE (zh_CN) and LC_ALL (blank) .

The expected date in Chinese with Ruby date syntax is: %Y年%b%d日 %A (a la YYYY/MM/DD *day)

[cy6ernaut]

I can confirm a similar bug for locale LC_TIME=sr_RS@latin. I have the interface language set to en_US UTF-8 and the Region and Time Format set to sr_RS@latin. I have the same version of libcinnamon-desktop4 (4.4.1). The expected date format in Serbian (Latin) is correct in /usr/share/i18n/locales/sr_RS@latin (%A, %d. %B %Y.), but in Calendar applet (and tooltip) it shows the en_US date format (%A %B %e %Y) literally translated into Serbian (Latin) language

[claudiux]

Similar bug for LC_TIME=fr_FR.UTF-8. The calendar shows Dimanche 22 décembre, 2019 (title and tooltip) instead of Dimanche 22 décembre 2019 as expected.

[MacKarp]

Same bug in Polish, its now: "DayOfTheWeek monthName, dayNumber, yearNumber", dunno how it was in 19.2 but it should be: "DayOfTheWeek dayNumber monthName yearNumber"
LANG=pl_PL.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=pl_PL:pl LC_CTYPE="pl_PL.UTF-8" LC_NUMERIC=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_TIME=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE="pl_PL.UTF-8" LC_MONETARY=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES="pl_PL.UTF-8" LC_PAPER=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_NAME=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_ADDRESS=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_TELEPHONE=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_MEASUREMENT=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=pl_PL.UTF-8 LC_ALL= 4.4.1+tricia

[gillcar]

Similar bug for LC_TIME=fr_FR.UTF-8. The calendar shows Dimanche 22 décembre, 2019 (title and tooltip) instead of Dimanche 22 décembre 2019 as expected.

I didn’t know that the comma was a mistake. That’s what it shows on mine with the french canadian language with 19.3

[kneekoo]

Wrong date format here as well. In the calendar pop-up/applet it's "day month date, year" when it should be "day, date month year". And directly in the system tray the year was missing.

Reference: IBM Knowledge Center

$ locale
LANG=ro_RO.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=ro_RO
LC_CTYPE="ro_RO.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_TIME=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE="ro_RO.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES="ro_RO.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_NAME=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=ro_RO.UTF-8
LC_ALL=

$ apt version libcinnamon-desktop4
4.4.1+tricia

[clefebvre]

OK back to the drawing board on this one... I'll troubleshoot my own locale:

LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=fr_FR
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_TIME=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_NAME=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_ALL=

Source code:

The relevant code in the applet is:

this._dateFormatFull = CinnamonDesktop.WallClock.lctime_format("cinnamon", "%A %B %-e, %Y");
let dateFormattedFull = this.clock.get_clock_for_format(this._dateFormatFull).capitalize();
this.set_applet_tooltip(dateFormattedFull);

Which calls these two functions in libcinnamon-desktop:

/**
 * gnome_wall_clock_lctime_format:
 * @clock: The GnomeWallClock
 * @gettext_domain: (nullable)
 * @format_string: (nullable)
 *
 * Returns the translation of the format string according to
 * the LC_TIME locale.
 *
 * Returns: (transfer none): The translated format string.
 **/
gchar *
gnome_wall_clock_lctime_format (const gchar * gettext_domain, const gchar * format_string)
{
  const gchar *env_language, *env_lc_time;
  gchar *string;
  gboolean   use_lctime;

  /* Use LC_TIME if it's set and different than LANGUAGE */
  env_language = g_getenv("LANGUAGE");
  env_lc_time = g_getenv("LC_TIME");

  use_lctime = (env_language != NULL) && (env_lc_time != NULL) && (g_strcmp0 (env_language, env_lc_time) != 0);

  if (use_lctime) {
    /* Set LANGUAGE to the LC_TIME value, so we can get the right date format via gettext */
    g_setenv("LANGUAGE", env_lc_time, TRUE);
  }

  string = dgettext(gettext_domain, format_string);

  if (use_lctime) {
    /* Set back LANGUAGE the way it was before */
    g_setenv("LANGUAGE", env_language, TRUE);
  }

  return string;
}

and

/**
 * gnome_wall_clock_get_clock_for_format:
 * @clock: The GnomeWallClock
 * @format_string: (not nullable)
 *
 * Returns a formatted date and time based on the provided format string.
 * The returned string should be ready to be set on a label.
 *
 * Returns: (transfer full): The formatted date/time string, or NULL
 * if there was a problem with the format string.
 **/
gchar *
gnome_wall_clock_get_clock_for_format (GnomeWallClock *clock,
                                       const gchar    *format_string)
{
    gchar *ret;
    GDateTime *now;

    g_return_val_if_fail (format_string != NULL, NULL);

    now = g_date_time_new_now_local ();
    ret = g_date_time_format (now, format_string);

    g_date_time_unref (now);

    return ret;
}

Translations:

The relevant translation here is Cinnamon's FR mo file in /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/cinnamon.mo, let's extract it into a po file with:

msgunfmt /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/cinnamon.mo > cinnamon.po

In the resulting file, we look up %A %B %-e, %Y and we get:

msgid "%A %B %-e, %Y"
msgstr "%A %e %B, %Y"

Execution:

When we call this._dateFormatFull = CinnamonDesktop.WallClock.lctime_format("cinnamon", "%A %B %-e, %Y");, our LANGUAGE and LC_TIME don't match (and that could be a bug... because they both are fr_FR.. but one has the UTF-8 suffix, and the other one doesn't..).

Anyway, so when we call this, LANGUAGE is given the value fr_FR.UTF-8 and we then call gettext to get the translations for %A %B %-e, %Y.

According to our translations, this should return %A %e %B, %Y.

By the time we call g_date_time_format, we're getting day and month names according to LC_TIME, so everything's in French, but in the format we specified (%A %e %B, %Y).

So in the case of @claudiux and @gillcar here, this isn't a bug. Dimanche 22 décembre, 2019 is correct.

[clefebvre]

It looks like the issue is with incomplete translations. All I'm getting is this:

Name=%A %B %-e, %Y
Name[da]=%A %-e. %B %Y
Name[de]=%A, %e. %B %Y
Name[fr]=%A %e %B, %Y
Name[fr_CA]=%A %e %B, %Y
Name[hr]=%A %-e %B, %Y
Name[hu]=%Y. %B %e., %A
Name[lt]=%Y %B %-e, %A
Name[tr]=%-e %B %A , %Y

For any other languages, if there's no translation for %A %B %-e, %Y, you'll get %A %B %-e, %Y... which is basically the US date format.

[clefebvre]

Here's zh_CN not translated for instance: https://translations.launchpad.net/linuxmint/latest/+pots/cinnamon/zh_CN/443/+translate.

Note that it might be translated in some languages in Launchpad and not yet pushed towards cinnamon-translations (cinnamon-l10n). In cinnamon-l10n 4.4.1, only translations for da, de, fr, fr_CA, hr, hu, lt and tr are present apparently.

[cy6ernaut]

Thank you Clem for clearing this out. I am not a coder, but as I used to translate a lot from English into Serbian and vice versa, I took the liberty to sign up to the Serbian Translation Team for Linux Mint and proposed a missing translation for line 443 in Template "cinnamon" for Serbian Latin (sr@latin) language. By the way, I had no idea how much translation is missing for this specific language. I'll have to make a New Year's resolution to translate as much as I can in 2020 :)

[kneekoo]

OK back to the drawing board on this one... I'll troubleshoot my own locale:

Thanks, I started updating the Romanian translation. 😁

[janos-r]

I have 19.3, but I feel that I have this format "issue" since 18.2 when I started using linux. I have the time format (in Language Settings) set to English, United Kingdom, even though I live in Czech Republic, I like my system in English.
The command date gives me: Sat 4 Jan 01:31:06 CET 2020
But the clock hover and header say: Saturday January 4, 2020
Of course I would like to have here: Saturday 4 January, 2020
Or even better, to have the possibility to set up the format, like in "World Clock Calendar" that I use. It lets me have a custom time on the panel and even for individual time zones. Heaving this for the Date and Time Settings would be nice.
This is not a major bug, but it surely is weird and there for a long time.
Thank you for investigating this.

[gillcar]

I was just checking what seems the standard date format in Quebec, Canada and found a few examples like this one https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/canada/quebec
With no comma between the month and year