Last modified: 2013-10-23 18:17:03 UTC
Since 1.18 $wgLanguageCode = "de_formal" is broken. Interface language is English instead. Changing to "de-formal" works but all existing installations are still broken.
IIRC that should have been de-formal all along, and de_formal is a misconfiguration, as far as I can tell. Can you point to any documentation that says otherwise (including that in any previous MediaWiki version)?
I have tested installation back to MediaWiki 1.12. "de-formal" was set by every installation script. So I have no idea where something is documented "de_formal". With exception of the message file itself: MessagesDe_formal.php I got the error report by e-mail and I have asked the reporter now where he found "de_formal".
As the one who reported the issue to Raimond Spekking, I am following up here on Bugzilla. > I got the error report by e-mail and I have asked the reporter now where he > found "de_formal". As stated under http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgLanguageCode, the language code should refer to the Message(.*).php file. "Site language code. Should be one of the ./languages/messages/Messages(.*).php files." Since the file name is MessageDe_formal.php, I thought to use "De_formal" - which worked until MediaWiki 1.17.0. There seems to be a confusion in the community about what "$wgLanguageCode" should contain: during configuration of several MediaWiki sites, I found searched the internet and found different recommendations, including "De_formal". The latter sounded to me the most logical one since it resembles exactly the part of the Message(.*).php file name. I guess that this confusion is strengthened further by the following quote, although, however, it clearly refers to the old MediaWiki 1.6.8: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgLanguageCode "In 1.6.8: the string is case sensitive. The installer installs though small (for example "de"). This results into only a partial use of the language file. This is fixed if you use "De", which then uses the LanguageDe.php correctly." For me, the issue seems not being a bug but rather a configuration issue which could benefit from an improved documentation. I recommend to add a clear statement to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgLanguageCode like the following: "Site language code. In recent versions of MediaWiki, the language code is always lower-case and can optionally contain a hyphen. Valid examples are: * en * en-gb * de * de-formal The language code instructs MediaWiki to referring to one of the ./languages/messages/Messages(.*).php files. Hence, the language code can be inferred from the respective Messages(.*).php file name."
Documentation updated. Please let me know if it is unclear.
