C.utf8 locale cannot be built

Hi,

when trying to build a system with C.utf8 locale, I end up with the following

error:

building /gnu/store/v6jma6kmwywr509n4y0vypchnh4y5s3m-locale-2.35.drv...

building locale 'C.utf8'...

[error] LC_MONETARY: value for field `mon_decimal_point' must not be an empty string

[error] no output file produced because errors were issued

Backtrace:

2 (primitive-load "/gnu/store/ccv2qfrqxk166ysg6anrzj1kz4h?")

In ice-9/boot-9.scm:

285:13 1 (for-each #<procedure 7fffeef5c540 at ice-9/eval.scm:3?> ?)

In guix/build/utils.scm:

812:6 0 (invoke "localedef" "--no-archive" "--prefix" "/gnu/st?" ?)

guix/build/utils.scm:812:6: In procedure invoke:

ERROR:

1. &invoke-error:

program: "localedef"

arguments: ("--no-archive" "--prefix" "/gnu/store/08rlginv27b9v1ba4n94plp7lmxjihja-locale-2.35/2.35" "-i" "C" "-f" "UTF-8" "/gnu/store/08rlginv27b9v1ba4n94plp7lmxjihja-locale-2.35/2.35/C.utf8")

exit-status: 4

term-signal: #f

stop-signal: #f

builder for `/gnu/store/v6jma6kmwywr509n4y0vypchnh4y5s3m-locale-2.35.drv' failed with exit code 1

build of /gnu/store/v6jma6kmwywr509n4y0vypchnh4y5s3m-locale-2.35.drv failed

View build log at '/var/log/guix/drvs/v6/jma6kmwywr509n4y0vypchnh4y5s3m-locale-2.35.drv.gz'.

cannot build derivation `/gnu/store/g47g7zqs5la6qpfmn6q1zgbhp291l1ha-system.drv': 1 dependencies couldn't be built

guix system: error: build of `/gnu/store/g47g7zqs5la6qpfmn6q1zgbhp291l1ha-system.drv' failed

This seems to be a known problem in 2.35,

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28861. On the page there is

also a workaround, and that is to compile with the locales with -c.

So that would be one solution until we update to 2.36 or higher. I do not see a

way to override this (add the -c) from the operating-system definition.

Tomas Volf

--

There are only two hard things in Computer Science:

cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

Hi Tomas!

Tomas Volf <~@wolfsden.cz> skribis:

[...]

We could/should fix this in (gnu system locale).

Now, it would also be nice if C.utf8 were built-in, shipped with the

‘glibc’ package we have (to me that’s the whole point of C.utf8). We

should fix that now in ‘core-updates’. Ideas on how to do that?

Thanks,

Ludo’.

On 2023-11-27 23:02:26 +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

Hi! :)

That is currently not possible I am afraid, since %default-locale-definitions is

global, not per-version, and glibc-2.33 is installed by default.

After short research, I do have an idea. My knowledge of Guix's internals is

not good enough (yet? :)) to implement it though. And I am not even sure it

should be done. Anyway here it goes:

1. Add a phase after 'install that builds and installs the C.utf8 locale, as

documented here[0].

2. Make glibc package add the directory into GUIX_LOCPATH. Since it accepts :

separated directories, it should be possible, however I am unsure how.

I think that should do it. However, I am not sure what the benefit would be.

The base locale is C, anything else (like C.utf8) is extra, and user needs to

modify LANG to get it working anyway. So installing it via the glibc-locales

seems fine enough.

In my opinion, the correct long-term approach here is to just add C.utf8 into

%default-locale-definitions. That however cannot be done until glibc-2.33 is

dropped from %default-locale-libcs.

For the time being however, using C.utf8 is solvable[1] from the

operating-system definition, with the exception of compiling the locale. About

which is this issue and the fix is trivial[2].

I am not sure this issue is worth overthinking it.

0: https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Running-make-install.html

1: https://emacs.ch/@graywolf/111404592336140803

2: https://git.sr.ht/~graywolf/guix/commit/1e94b59a7b27d44435f321083a01242bdf16c566

Let me know what you think :)

Tomas

--

There are only two hard things in Computer Science:

cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

Hello!

Tomas Volf <~@wolfsden.cz> skribis:

[...]

I decided to give it a go:

https://issues.guix.gnu.org/67686

Please do chime in and let me know what you think!

Ludo’.

Hi :)

On 2023-12-07 11:27:04 +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

Thanks to the detailed cover letter, now I understand the benefit, so I agree it

would make sense. I looked over the implementation, and it looks fine to me (I

am not sure if I am qualified to do the review though :) ).

I just have few notes:

1.

I do think 2.35 should install the locale as well. That would require to change

(invoke (string-append bin "/localedef")

"--no-archive" "--prefix" locale

"-i" "C" "-f" "UTF-8"

(string-append locale "/C.UTF-8")))))

into

(invoke (string-append bin "/localedef")

"-c" "--no-archive" "--prefix" locale

"-i" "C" "-f" "UTF-8"

(string-append locale "/C.UTF-8")))))

however I think that is fine. I am using locale built like that and it works

well. What is more, from the discussion under the other issue[0], that is

exactly what is done during normal glibc build:

After that the drop of 'install-utf8-c-locale can be moved into some other

version < 2.35.

2.

I still believe it makes sense to add the -c also into the locale builder,

because my understanding is that this change will not allow using (locale

"C.utf8") in the operating-system definition (since that would still try to

build it, and fail).

If you are not opposed to the idea, I can send a patch if you would prefer not

to do it yourself.

3.

I looked around a bit, and I am not sure that is true. There seems to be only

./locale/localedef created. However, there is localedef inside gcc-toolchain's

bin directory, and, of course, in the build glibc. I am not sure what are the

version requirements here, but I would expect at least the one provided by glibc

to be usable.

Have a nice day,

Tomas

0: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28845

--

There are only two hard things in Computer Science:

cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

Hi Tomas,

Tomas Volf <~@wolfsden.cz> skribis:

I’m a bit wary of using ‘-c’ (aka. ‘--force’) unconditionally as this

could hide real problems.

But more importantly, I think it won’t matter whether glibc 2.35 ships

C.UTF-8 since it’s no longer going to be used, except for building old

locale data via ‘locale-libcs’.

No you’re right, we could add ‘-c’ to the code in (gnu system locale),

though perhaps it would be safer to do so only in the 2.35 + C.UTF-8

case.

(We can do that independently of this patch.)

In the meantime I found that this is wrong indeed:

https://issues.guix.gnu.org/67686#11

Thanks for your feedback!

Ludo’.

On 2023-12-09 15:46:58 +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

My attempt at that can be found here: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/67735

Tomas

--

There are only two hard things in Computer Science:

cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.