[R] Change of locale

[Chel Hee Lee]

Thank you so much.  Your explanation is very clear and helpful to 
understand.  Thank you, again.

Chel Hee Lee

On 1/12/2015 5:56 AM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> You don't want to change the locale, rather the message language.  That
> is not a locale, and e.g.
>
> LANGUAGE=en
>
> is the correct form.
>
> See
>
> http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-patched/R-admin.html#Localization-of-messages
>
>
> for what may be possible during a session: nothing is guaranteed.
> Documented behaviour is never a bug: in this case you are using OS
> services and it depends on the OS (and as the manual says, on precisely
> what versions of the support software the OS is using).
>
> I see
>
>  > a
> Error: object 'a' not found
>  > Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "zh_CN.UTF-8")
> [1] "zh_CN.UTF-8"
>  > a
> 错误: 找不到对象'a'
>  > Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "en_GB.UTF-8")
> [1] "en_GB.UTF-8"
>  > a
> Error: object 'a' not found
>
> on Fedora 20.
>
>
> On 12/01/2015 06:19, Chel Hee Lee wrote:
>> Could anyone kindly guide me how to change locale?  Any advice would be
>> greatly appreciated.   What I am trying to do is to see if messages are
>> correctly in a given locale.  The environment variables are:
>>
>>  > sessionInfo()
>> R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31)
>> Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>>
>> locale:
>>   [1] LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>>   [3] LC_TIME=en_CA.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_CA.UTF-8
>>   [5] LC_MONETARY=en_CA.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_CA.UTF-8
>>   [7] LC_PAPER=en_CA.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
>>   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
>> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>>
>> * Since I do not create any objects yet, the following message must be
>> shown when typing the alphabet 'a'.
>>
>>  > a
>> Error: object 'a' not found
>>  > Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
>>              LANG         LANGUAGE
>>     "en_CA.UTF-8" "en_CA:en_US:en"
>>  > Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
>> [1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  >
>>
>> I am happy with this result.  Now, I'd like to see messages in Chineses.
>>
>>  > Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "zh_CN.UTF-8")
>> [1] "zh_CN.UTF-8"
>>  > a
>> Error: object 'a' not found
>>
>> The message is still shown in English; thus, I am changing the value of
>> 'LANGUAGE'.
>>
>>  > Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="zh_CN.UTF-8")
>>  > a
>> 错误: 找不到对象'a'
>>  > Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
>>           LANG      LANGUAGE
>> "en_CA.UTF-8"  "zh_CN.UTF-8"
>>  > Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
>> [1] "zh_CN.UTF-8"
>>  >
>>
>> Now, I'd like to use messages in English again.  At this time, I changed
>> the value of LANGUAGE rather than LC_MESSAGES.
>>
>>  > Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="en_CA.UTF-8")
>>  > a
>> 错误: 找不到对象'a'
>>
>> I still see this message in Chinese so that I change 'LC_MESSAGES'.
>>
>>  > Sys.setlocale("LC_MESSAGES", "en_CA.UTF-8")
>> [1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  > a
>> Error: object 'a' not found
>>  > Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
>>           LANG      LANGUAGE
>> "en_CA.UTF-8"  "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  > Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
>> [1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  >
>>
>> Thus, should I set the same value on both 'LANGUAGE' and 'LC_MESSAGES'
>> in order to change messages in a given locale?   However, it is
>> questionable.  Please see the following example (messages in Japanese):
>>
>>  > Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="ja_JP.UTF-8")
>>  > a
>>   エラー:  オブジェクト 'a' がありません
>>  > Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
>>           LANG      LANGUAGE
>> "en_CA.UTF-8"  "ja_JP.UTF-8"
>>  > Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
>> [1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  >
>>  > Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="en_CA.UTF-8")
>>  > a
>>   エラー:  オブジェクト 'a' がありません
>>  > Sys.getenv()[c("LANG", "LANGUAGE")]
>>           LANG      LANGUAGE
>> "en_CA.UTF-8"  "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  > Sys.getlocale("LC_MESSAGES")
>> [1] "en_CA.UTF-8"
>>  > a
>>   エラー:  オブジェクト 'a' がありません
>>  >
>>
>> Is this a bug?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Chel Hee Lee
>>
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>
>