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Internationalization Overview
The global Internet demands global software- that is, software that can be developed independently of the countries or languages of its users, and then localized for multiple countries or regions. The Java 2 Platform provides a rich set of APIs for developing global applications. These internationalization APIs are based on the Unicode 2.1 character encoding and include the ability to adapt text, numbers, dates, currency, and user-defined objects to any country's conventions.
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Introduction to Internationalization
Internationalization is the process of designing an application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Sometimes the term internationalization is abbreviated as i18n, because there are 18 letters between the first "i" and the last "n."
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Creating a Locale
To create a Locale object, you typically specify the language code and the country code.
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Identifying Available Locales
You can create a Locale with any combination of valid language and country codes, but that doesn't mean that you can use it. Remember, a Locale object is only an identifier. You pass the Locale object to other objects, which then do the real work.
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Isolating Locale-Specific Data
The global Internet demands global software- that is, software that can be developed independently of the countries or languages of its users, and then localized for multiple countries or regions. The Java 2 Platform provides a rich set of APIs for developing global applications. These internationalization APIs are based on the Unicode 2.1 character encoding and include the ability to adapt text, numbers, dates, currency, and user-defined objects to any country's conventions.
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Supported Locales
The set of supported locales varies between different implementations of the Java 2 platform as well as between different areas of functionality.
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Internationalize your software, Part 1
The combination of a global economy, the Internet, and Java has increased the importance of developing software for an international audience. Internationalizing your software is no trivial task, but the rewards of having your software become accessible to the global marketplace make the time and effort worthwhile
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Internationalize your software, Part 3
In the final part of this three-part series on internationalization, Geoff explores dates, time zones, calendars, formatters, and international fonts. Being rather curious, he lifts the lid on JDK 1.1.7 and Java 2 (formerly known as JDK 1.2) to see what new internationalization features have been added
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Internationalize your software, Part 2
In Part 2 of this three-part series on internationalization, Geoff expands on the concepts of internationalization and localization; characters and character definition standards; locales; and resource bundles.
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