Handling the new Japanese Era Name.

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15

Situation

The Japanese era name has changed on May 1, 2019. This change also affects SUSE products, as a result the new era name needs to be added on the related packages:

The glibc ja_JP locale information needs to be updated to include the new era name for strptime/strftime support.
Libicu patching might be needed.
Java OpenJDK also needs patches in order to include the new era name.

Resolution

A maintenance update for glibc was released which includes support for the new era. If you have any application that is using a Japanese locale, an update of glibc should be performed. The glibc update may also require a restart of affected applications in order to load the new updated libraries.

Currently SUSE is working to also include the new era name in Java OpenJDK packages and in libicu. As soon as the patches of OpenJDK and ICU are released, this document will be updated accordingly with additional details.

Additional Information

The glibc era name conversion table is defined in glibc's locale definition file for local ja_JP. The conversion table is updated on glibc upstream first according to the new era name announcement.

ICU is a mature, widely used set of C/C++ and Java libraries providing Unicode and globalization support for software applications. Multiple types of calendars are provided beyond the traditional Gregorian calendar.

Java uses its own APIs to support Japanese calendar, for example for version 10: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/10/docs/api/java/time/chrono/JapaneseEra.html

Disclaimer

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