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+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #657588 +++ Description of problem: The short version of month names in zh_CN starts with a space for January through September. But the space is not actually part of the month name, I'm sure, even if I don't know any Chinese. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): glibc-2.5-49.el5_5.7 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. for i in `seq 1 12` ; do LANG=zh_CN.utf8 date -d `printf 2010%02d01 $i` +%b ; done Actual results: 1月 2月 3月 4月 5月 6月 7月 8月 9月 10月 11月 12月 Expected results: 1月 2月 3月 4月 5月 6月 7月 8月 9月 10月 11月 12月 Additional info: I guess the reason for the spaces is to make these names have the same length in a display. And when printing, it maybe doesn't cause problems too often. But when reading a date with strptime(), it causes problems if the pattern is space separated. Using a strptime() pattern like "%Y.%b.%d" can be made to work. It requires that the input really has a space in the month name, so "2010. 1月.26" would be accepted, while "2010.1月.26" would not. It could be surprising for a human entering the time. If the date is space separated, it gets worse. If the pattern is e.g. "%Y %b %d" there is no way to enter a date in months other than October, November, or December. The space after %Y will match any number of spaces in the input. There will never be any space "left" to become part of the month name.
Since the problem described in this bug report should be resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated files, follow the link below. If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2012-0763.html