This awkwardness comes from a number of sources -- some related to poor word selection and some related to differences in the syntax of the two languages. |
"Internationalize your software" is a three-part series that explores the topic of developing Java-based software for an international audience, and it's divided into numerous subtopics. The following subtopics are covered in Part 1: |
Most Websites are customized for a specific locale, with the locale defined as a geographical region or political entity that shares a common language, culture, and customs. While this may not be a significant issue to most people, it may pose some interesting challenges to those conducting business on the Web. By its very nature, ecommerce is all about facilitating commerce across national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries. While the Web may have opened up businesses to a truly international clientele, Web-based firms have to contend with the all-too-probable scenario of non-English-speaking users struggling to understand their sites' content. As many businesses have come to realize, every Web surfer who turns away because of the site's English-centric nature is a potential customer lost. |
Finally, Part 2 concludes by expanding on last month's discussion of resource bundles. More specifically, we look at how to access objects that are contained within a resource bundle. We find out how to use property resource bundles with applets -- without running into security violations. And we explore how to use a list resource bundle to hold nontextual data -- such as locale-specific images. |
Many Java programs work with the concept of time. For example, one program might measure the interval between two events while another is designed to calculate a person's age. Different cultures tend to measure time in standardized units such as minutes and days. However, they don't all use the same calendar. For example, one culture might use the Gregorian calendar while another uses the 13-month lunar calendar. And we need to make sure that our international software takes this varying calendar usage into account, so that it exhibits consistent behavior for the particular locale in which it's used. |
Operations that can be localized (formatting a date, for example) usually take a Locale instance as an argument. If it is not specified, the argument defaults to the current locale. |
There are several distinct steps to the task of internationalization. Java (1.1 and later) addresses these steps with several different mechanisms: |
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Internationalization (I18N) and Localization is easier with Java, in contrast with other, previous native applications. Credit goes to IBM's Center for Java Technology, Silicon Valley. |
Your application is not required to find and set up the parent objects for the ResourceBundle objects it uses. The getBundle( ) method actually does this for you. When getBundle( ) finds an appropriate class or properties file as described previously, it does not immediately return the ResourceBundle it has found. Instead, it continues through the remaining steps in the previous search process, looking for less-specific class or properties files from which the ResourceBundle may inherit resources. If and when getBundle( ) finds these less-specific resource bundles, it sets them up as the appropriate ancestors of the original bundle. Only once it has checked all possibilities does it return the original ResourceBundle object that it created. |
While this article will not attempt to discuss all the facets of internationalization, it will cover how to more easily perform some of the tasks necessary to introduce i18n functionality by examining a new open source project called I18N Messages and Logging, or i18nlog for short. |
Similarly, a software system should respect its users' language and geographic region to be effective. Language and region form a locale, which represents the target setting and context for localized software. The Java platform uses java.util.Locale objects to represent locales. This article describes the Locale object and its implications for programs written for the Java platform. |
Creating a global application isn't particularly difficult, but it does require you to become familiar with the most common international problems and their solutions. The problems associated with creating an international application are basically the same from one computing environment and language to any other. Solutions are roughly equivalent as well, although their implementations obviously differ among the various computing environments and programming languages. This article gives an overview of internationalization topics and concepts in a Java programming environment, and covers the following features available in the Java Development Kit 1.1. |
ListResourceBundles are classes, so you store them in a .java file. Of course, you must compile them to byte-code to use them. |
Don't let the inherent locale support in the JDK fool you into letting your guard down. Even though the Java language is full of localization features, your applications can still become U.S.-centric. Many internationalization problems stem from invalid assumptions that developers make about free-text user input, currency display, and date/time parsing. This article will show you how these assumptions can trip you up, and then help you put your applications on the road to better usability worldwide. |
Internationalization on the Java platform Included in the Java 1.1 API are the java.text package and the ResourceBundle classes contained in the java.util package, which together with the Locale classes make up the backbone of localization on the Java platform. Resource bundles use a cascading mechanism to provide the best translation support with the minimal amount of work for both the developer and resources of the computer. In this scheme, the developer creates files that define a lookup table for translation and adds an encoding to the names of these files to specify the locale of the file. For instance, if the developer chose to use property files to represent the lookup tables, they might look like this: |
This tutorial introduces you to the Java? programming language's support for multilingual and multicountry environments. The tutorial begins with a general discussion of internationalization principles and concepts, and then moves on to an overview of the specific areas of Java internationalization support. The last few sections provide a more hands-on discussion of the areas basic to any internationalized Java application, such as Unicode and Java characters, locales and resource bundles, and formatting dates, numbers, and currencies. |
Globalization is not just a political buzzword. It is a reality of the real world of business, and it is a reality that has increasing impact on software developers. Whether you work on a Web property that attracts traffic from around the world, a service that must accommodate users worldwide, or a packaged software product that needs to be sold globally, you will confront software internationalization. |
In this example, the constructor arguments are interpreted in only one way: February 1, 1999 AD, in the Gregorian calendar. There's a similar problem with Date methods such as getDay, getMonth, getYear, etc. But as I described in the introduction, some countries use different calendars: Hebrew, Hijri, or something else. A fully-internationalized Java application needs to be able to support multiple calendar systems, not just the Gregorian one. |
Right away you see a big problem. "Wait a minute," you say, "my Web site may have a few applets on it, but the bulk of what my users see is just HTML! And in any case, there's no reason to believe my users have a Unicode font installed on their computers! And if that weren't bad enough, Java i18n is supported by only the most recent browser versions!" Are you back to square one? Can you use Java to i18n-ize your site? Sure you can. The trick is to use server-side Java, which you access from the browser using some sort of server-side scripting technology. I will use Server-Side JavaScript (SSJS) and server-side LiveConnect, which are supported by the Netscape Enterprise Server, but you could use Java Servlets or some other technology. |