@@ -27,11 +27,37 @@ set -o xtrace

 # Make sure custom grep options don't get in the way

 unset GREP_OPTIONS

-# Sanitize language settings to avoid commands bailing out

-# with "unsupported locale setting" errors.

+# NOTE(sdague): why do we explicitly set locale when running stack.sh?

+#

+# Devstack is written in bash, and many functions used throughout

+# devstack process text comming off a command (like the ip command)

+# and do transforms using grep, sed, cut, awk on the strings that are

+# returned. Many of these programs are interationalized, which is

+# great for end users, but means that the strings that devstack

+# functions depend upon might not be there in other locales. We thus

+# need to pin the world to an english basis during the runs.

+#

+# Previously we used the C locale for this, every system has it, and

+# it gives us a stable sort order. It does however mean that we

+# effectively drop unicode support.... boo!  :(

+#

+# With python3 being more unicode aware by default, that's not the

+# right option. While there is a C.utf8 locale, some distros are

+# shipping it as C.UTF8 for extra confusingness. And it's support

+# isn't super clear across distros. This is made more challenging when

+# trying to support both out of the box distros, and the gate which

+# uses diskimage builder to build disk images in a different way than

+# the distros do.

+#

+# So... en_US.utf8 it is. That's existed for a very long time. It is a

+# compromise position, but it is the least worse idea at the time of

+# this comment.

+#

+# We also have to unset other variables that might impact LC_ALL

+# taking effect.

 unset LANG

 unset LANGUAGE

-LC_ALL=C

+LC_ALL=en_US.utf8

 export LC_ALL

 # Make sure umask is sane