Add LC_CTYPE to environment variables in macOS

[morberg]

Some componentes, e.g. tradfri, will not work properly unless LANG is an UTF-8 environment. Not sure which locale to choose, went with en_US.UTF-8. Perhaps C.UTF-8 would be a better choice, but I couldn't get that to work properly (only worked from the command line, not as a launch agent).

Edit: changed to set LC_CTYPE to UTF-8, see discussion below for details.

Description:

Related issue: fixes #9008 for macOS.

Checklist:

Couldn't find anything applicable in the checklist.

[homeassistant]

Hi @morberg,

It seems you haven't yet signed a CLA. Please do so here.

Once you do that we will be able to review and accept this pull request.

Thanks!

[dale3h]

Does this PR only apply to macOS?

[morberg]

Yes, the launchd.plist file is only used on macOS. Linux and Windows uses other methods for auto start. I've updated the PR title and the original comment to state it only fixes #9008 for macOS.

[pvizeli]

hmm. @balloob ? Is that a good idea to set it fix to en_US?

[dale3h]

@pvizeli I do not think that it is a good idea to hardcode to en_US, but instead we should trap the error inside of the component and provide a better warning of what is going on.

[morberg]

For reference @matemaciek had UTF-8 problems in docker and proposed a fix in python, but later settled on setting locale in the docker script.

[pvizeli]

We set C.UTF-8 inside docker to fix problem with python. That is a general python problem

[morberg]

macOS doesn't seem to have a C.UTF-8 locale according to locale -a which is probably why I couldn't get that to work.

If LANG is set to an existing encoding, that value is inherited by all LC_ environment variables. If the encoding does not exist, the LC_ variables will remain unchanged. If I understand the environment variables correctly it is LC_CTYPE that needs to be in a UTF-8 locale for python to work properly.

Through trial, googling, and error I could get Home Assistant (and tradfri) to work properly by setting LC_CTYPE to UTF-8 (not C.UTF-8) in the .plist file instead of setting LANG to en_US.UTF-8. Setting LANG to UTF-8 does not work; LC_CTYPE will remain unchanged. locale -a doesn't list UTF-8 as a locale, which makes me a bit sceptical, but it works - at least on my system.

Would it be a better solution to set LC_CTYPE to UTF-8 in the .plist file?

[balloob]

Let's start with setting LC_CTYPE to UTF-8 in the plist file. I want to point as many things as possible at UTF-8 as possible and shy away from language specific things like en_US.

[morberg]

Sure thing. Added a new commit, let me know if you need anything else.