Bogus locales on Mac

[Ellen Herzfeld]

I have been tearing my hair out trying to get Python to sort strings
containing accented characters according to the French locale settings
on Mac OS X (10.3).

I think I've done it correctly because on a Linux box it works...

What I find in the Mac's entrails is this:
/usr/share/locale/fr_FR.UTF-8 contains
LC_COLLATE -> ../la_LN.UTF-8/LC_COLLATE
LC_CTYPE -> ../la_LN.UTF-8/LC_CTYPE
LC_TIME
...

I checked some other locale directories and found the same link to
la_LN.UTF-8/LC_COLLATE, so whatever language you think you are
choosing, you are actually getting the same thing... I don't know what
la_LN is, maybe LATIN... The LC_COLLATE file in /la_LN.UTF-8 is 4642
bytes, the equivalent Linux file is 882134 bytes...

The date strings for the months are really in French in LC_TIME, and
using it does work correctly.

I tried using the Linux LC_COLLATE file on the Mac but it didn't work.

Has anyone using a Mac managed to sort accented strings correctly?

The Mac has mostly tried to be quite international so I'm surprised at
this. Have I missed something?

Thanks.

Ellen

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xlii at xlii.supprimer.org                |  Ellen C. Herzfeld 
http://www.quarante-deux.org/          |  Dominique O. Martel
Quelques pages sur la Science-Fiction  |  Quarante-Deux
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