Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> > Btw, I wonder whether we should have a way to pass the locale string
>> > explicitly, instead of relying on $LC_COLLATE.
>> 
>> We could add an optional argument to string-collate-*. But this would
>> break signature equivalence with string-lessp and string-equal,
>> respectively.
>> 
>> Or we could introduce a global var, which shall be let-bound to the
>> locale string.
>
> Or have a new optional argument in string-lessp etc., or introduce a
> new set of APIs which will accept a locale, and have string-lessp
> etc. call them with that argument nil.

An optional argument to string-lessp could be inconvenient. IMHO, the
most important use-case of string-lessp is being a PREDICATE of
sort. This does not support optional arguments.

>> This raises the question, whether we shall use also my first setlocale
>> approach in case of uselocale absence?
>
> I think so, yes.

Extended patch appended.

Best regards, Michael.