From my understanding,

gluLookAt(
        eye_x, eye_y, eye_z,
        center_x, center_y, center_z,   
        up_x, up_y, up_z
    );

is equivalent to:

glRotatef(B, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
glRotatef(A, wx, wy, wz);
glTranslatef(-eye_x, -eye_y, -eye_z);

But when I print out the ModelView matrix, the call to glTranslatef() doesn't seem to work properly. Here is the code snippet:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <GL/glut.h>

#include <iomanip>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

static const int Rx = 0;
static const int Ry = 1;
static const int Rz = 2;

static const int Ux = 4;
static const int Uy = 5;
static const int Uz = 6;

static const int Ax = 8;
static const int Ay = 9;
static const int Az = 10;

static const int Tx = 12;
static const int Ty = 13;
static const int Tz = 14;

void init() {
    glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
    glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
    glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH);
    glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
    glEnable(GL_LIGHT0);
    GLfloat lmodel_ambient[] = { 0.8, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 };
    glLightModelfv(GL_LIGHT_MODEL_AMBIENT, lmodel_ambient);
}

void displayModelviewMatrix(float MV[16]) {
    int SPACING = 12;
    cout << left;
    cout << "\tMODELVIEW MATRIX\n";
    cout << "--------------------------------------------------" << endl;
    cout << setw(SPACING) << "R" << setw(SPACING) << "U" << setw(SPACING) << "A" << setw(SPACING) << "T" << endl;   
    cout << "--------------------------------------------------" << endl;
    cout << setw(SPACING) << MV[Rx] << setw(SPACING) << MV[Ux] << setw(SPACING) << MV[Ax]  << setw(SPACING) << MV[Tx] << endl;
    cout << setw(SPACING) << MV[Ry] << setw(SPACING) << MV[Uy] << setw(SPACING) << MV[Ay]  << setw(SPACING) << MV[Ty] << endl;
    cout << setw(SPACING) << MV[Rz] << setw(SPACING) << MV[Uz] << setw(SPACING) << MV[Az] << setw(SPACING)  << MV[Tz] << endl;
    cout << setw(SPACING) << MV[3] << setw(SPACING) << MV[7] << setw(SPACING) << MV[11] << setw(SPACING) << MV[15] << endl;
    cout << "--------------------------------------------------" << endl;
    cout << endl;
}

void reshape(int w, int h) {
    float ratio = static_cast<float>(w)/h;
    glViewport(0, 0, w, h);
    glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
    glLoadIdentity();
    gluPerspective(45.0, ratio, 1.0, 425.0);
}

void draw() {
    float m[16];
    glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
    glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
    glLoadIdentity();
    glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, m);
    gluLookAt(
        300.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
        0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
        0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f
    );
    glColor3f(1.0, 0.0, 0.0);
    glutSolidCube(100.0);
    glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, m);
    displayModelviewMatrix(m);
    glutSwapBuffers();
}


int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    glutInit(&argc, argv);
    glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB | GLUT_DEPTH);
    glutInitWindowSize(400, 400);
    glutInitWindowPosition(100, 100);
    glutCreateWindow("Demo");
    glutReshapeFunc(reshape);
    glutDisplayFunc(draw);
    init();
    glutMainLoop();
    return 0;
} 

No matter what value I use for the eye vector:
300, 0, 0 or
0, 300, 0 or
0, 0, 300
the translation vector is the same, which doesn't make any sense because the order of code is in backward order so glTranslatef should run first, then the 2 rotations. Plus, the rotation matrix, is completely independent of the translation column (in the ModelView matrix), then what would cause this weird behavior? Here is the output with the eye vector is (0.0f, 300.0f, 0.0f)

        MODELVIEW MATRIX
--------------------------------------------------
R           U           A           T
--------------------------------------------------
0           0           0           0
0           0           0           0
0           1           0           -300
0           0           0           1
--------------------------------------------------

I would expect the T column to be (0, -300, 0)! So could anyone help me explain this?

The implementation of gluLookAt from http://www.mesa3d.org

void GLAPIENTRY
gluLookAt(GLdouble eyex, GLdouble eyey, GLdouble eyez, GLdouble centerx,
      GLdouble centery, GLdouble centerz, GLdouble upx, GLdouble upy,
      GLdouble upz)
{
    float forward[3], side[3], up[3];
    GLfloat m[4][4];

    forward[0] = centerx - eyex;
    forward[1] = centery - eyey;
    forward[2] = centerz - eyez;

    up[0] = upx;
    up[1] = upy;
    up[2] = upz;

    normalize(forward);

    /* Side = forward x up */
    cross(forward, up, side);
    normalize(side);

    /* Recompute up as: up = side x forward */
    cross(side, forward, up);

    __gluMakeIdentityf(&m[0][0]);
    m[0][0] = side[0];
    m[1][0] = side[1];
    m[2][0] = side[2];

    m[0][1] = up[0];
    m[1][1] = up[1];
    m[2][1] = up[2];

    m[0][2] = -forward[0];
    m[1][2] = -forward[1];
    m[2][2] = -forward[2];

    glMultMatrixf(&m[0][0]);
    glTranslated(-eyex, -eyey, -eyez);
}