What is Locatlization and Internationalisation.What is its use in java
Not everybody reads/writes/ speaks/understand English. If you want to build
an application for a global market you want your application to be available in
as many languages as possible. Java uses Unicode characters for character
display. Unicode supports many many alphabets.
You don't want to recode your application over and over again for every single
language, so you 'internationalize' it. This basically means that you don't put
any word or phrase or sentence in your code. You use 'keys' instead. A key
and a language make up that particular word in that language. That's the
localization process.
Basically you end up with lists; one per language. e.g.
- English: <key, value>
-
F File
-
B Button
-
O Ok
-
C Cancel
-
-
Dutch: <key, value>
-
F Bestand
-
B Knop
-
O Ok
-
C Opheffen
Instead of putting the literal text 'File' in your menu item, you search for key 'F'
given a language and you put the associated value for 'F' in your menu item.
There's more to I18N and L10N (the abbreviations for those two long words)
such as writing from right to left, top to bottom, decimal point symbols, the
way dates are written etc. etc.
kind regards,
Jos
73
