Locale nb not supported on Node versions >= 14.17.1 and <= 16.8.0

[synchronos-t]

On Node versions 14.17.1 and greater and versions 16.8.0 and smaller Intl.NumberFormat.supportedLocalesOf('nb'); returns an empty array, indicating that the nb locale (Norwegian bokmål) isn't supported. On other versions it correctly returns ['nb'].

Not a problem for Node 16, but is still broken on the newest Node 14 version. From the changelogs of 16.9.0 I couldn't find anything that would be related to locales, so I cannot say what fixed it on Node 16. Nor from the 14.7.1 changelogs anything that might have broken it.

I also tested that the locale does not indeed exist, but instead default to the default locale (at least on my system it's en-US). Thus, this happens:

new Intl.NumberFormat('nb').format(10200.33) // returns '10,200.33'

while it should do, and does on, e.g., 14.17.0, 16.9.0, and 16.18.1:

new Intl.NumberFormat('nb').format(10200.33) // returns '10 200,33'

The same also happens if I use a nb-NO locale string. nn (Norwegian nynorsk) and nn-NO do work.

[richardlau]

Node.js 14.17.1 updated to ICU 69.1. This is likely related to https://icu.unicode.org/design/norwegian-locales-changes-in-v39.

“nb” and “nn” inherit from a prent locale “no”. This is the first case in which a language-only locale code has a parent other than “root”. Code that assumes that language-only locale codes (i.e. locale IDs without ‘_’or ‘-’ ) can only have a parent of “root” may now fail.

Node.js 16.9.0 did not update ICU, but it did update V8 -- I suspect there's a V8 change somewhere that handles a non-"root" parent.

[richardlau]

Probably https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/v8/v8/+/3068010 related to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1215606.

[targos]

It seems safe to backport. FWIW this part of the code is still the same in V8's main branch.

[richardlau]

Opened #45785.

[synchronos-t]

Node.js 14.17.1 updated to ICU 69.1. This is likely related to https://icu.unicode.org/design/norwegian-locales-changes-in-v39.

“nb” and “nn” inherit from a prent locale “no”. This is the first case in which a language-only locale code has a parent other than “root”. Code that assumes that language-only locale codes (i.e. locale IDs without ‘_’or ‘-’ ) can only have a parent of “root” may now fail.

I wonder if that is the cause why it only affected the nb and not nn, if they both inherit from the no locale.

[bnoordhuis]

Fixed in v14.21.2.