Bug#234902: libgtk2.0-0: "." key makes a ","

[Lionel Elie Mamane]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 04:19:17PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:

> Ever tried to enter numbers with a comma in a spreadsheet when the
> comma is 20 cm far from the keypad?

Not in a spreadsheet, but I have in other applications.

> Think to all users, not only to geeks who type their numbers in
> English.

Think to all users, not only to geeks that can survive an extra level
of indirection between what is engraved on the keyboard and what shows
up on the screen.

> Anyway, I've been told the next GTK+ release will switch back to
> producing a point, but it won't help. This should be fixed for all
> apps, not broken for all apps.

I snooped a bit around in the CVS and indeed:

Fri Sep  5 14:15:10 2003  Owen Taylor  <otaylor@redhat.com>

        * Back out locale-dependent interpretation of
        KP_Decimal, the official XFree86 interpretation
        is that KP_Decimal => . KP_Separator => ,
        always, independent of locale.
        (#105161, Frederic Crozat,
        http://bugs.xfree86.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534)
  
I've also read the relevant bug entries in XFree86, GTK+ and
Redhat. Basically, what happened (in my view):

 - Someone said: Hey, my Swedish keyboard has a "," on the keypad and
   X gives me a ".".

 - GTK+ developer thinks: Well, X sends me KP_Decimal, but should
   send me KP_Separator. Hmm... Someone using one keyboard is using
   the relevant locale, right? So, let's make GTK+ interpret
   KP_Decimal according to locale.

 - Breakage for French, which has a "." on the key, even when the
   above assumption holds. The original problem eventually gets fixed
   in XFree86: se (and others) keymaps send KP_Separator for the key
   marked ",". Broken "fix" in GTK+ can go.

-- 
Lionel