[docs] [issue12726] explain that locale.getlocale() does not read system's locales

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> added the comment:

Our docs explain behavior without, generally, explaining why. Hence the title change.

'Returns the current setting for the given locale category' seems pretty clear that it returns the current program setting rather than the default system setting. However, 'program' could be added to be clearer.

The previous discussion for locale.getdefaultlocale makes it clear that the starting program locale is (should be) the "portable 'C' locale". I presume you are saying that in this locale, the setting for the default LC_CTYPE category is (None,None). However, this appears to currently only be true for 2.7. So I suppose we could add for 2.7 "In the starting 'C' locale, the LC_CTYPE setting is (None,None)." (Given the next paragraph describing 'C' as a non-standard language code, I would have expected ('C',None), but it is as it is.)

Reading #6203, something different is needed for 3.2 and something else again might be needed for 3.3 depending on what is or is not done.

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nosy: +terry.reedy
title: explain why locale.getlocale() does not read system's locales -> explain that locale.getlocale() does not read system's locales

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue12726>
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