localization with

7/31/2019 Localization With

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Introduction

Why should my application be world-ready?

Definitions

Globalization Localizability

Localization

Resources


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.NET International Support

.NET Framework International Support Provides information and APIs for over 200

cultures

Important NamespaceSystem.Globalization

System.Resources

System.Text


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CultureInfo Class

System.Globalization.CultureInfo Provides culture specific information such as

culture name, language, country region,

calendar Provides access to culture specific instancesof other classes such as DateTimeFormatInfo,NumberFormatInfo etc.


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Culture Names

Culture Names RFC 1766 standard [-] languagecode2 two letter lowercase derived

from ISO-639-1 Country/regioncode two/three letter uppercase

derived from ISO 3166


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Types of Cultures

Different Types Of Cultures Invariant Culture Neutral Cultures Specific Cultures


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Culture Tree

Invariant Culture

de (German Neutral Culture)

en (English Neutral Culture)

de-AT (German-Austria)

de-CH (German-Switzerland)

de-DE (German-Germany)

de-LI (German-Liechtenstein)

de-LU (German-Luxembourg)

en-US (English-United States)

en-GB (English-United Kingdom)


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Invariant Culture

VB.NETImports System.Globalization

Dim ci As CultureInfo = new CultureInfo()

C#using System.Globalization;

CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo();


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Invariant Culture

VB.NETDim ci As CultureInfo =

CultureInfo.InvariantCulture

C#CultureInfo ci = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture


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Neutral Culture


Dim ci As CultureInfo = New CultureInfo(fr)

C#

using System.Globalization;

CultureInfo ci = new CultureInfo(fr);


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Specific Culture

Associated with Language and aCountry/Region

fr Neutral Culture

fr-FR Specific Culture Provides additional information about

the date, time, currency and numberformatting options

Can be used wherever a Neutral cultureis used, the opposite is not true


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Specific Culture


Imports System

Module Module1

Sub Main()

Dim sc As CultureInfo = New CultureInfo(es-AR)

Spanish-Argentina

Dim nc As CultureInfo = sc.Parent

Console.WriteLine(String.Format(Specific culture

is {0} ({1}),sc,sc.EnglishName))

Console.WriteLine(String.Format(Neutral culture

is {0} ({1}),nc,nc.EnglishName))

End Sub

End Module


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Neutral Specific

Use CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCultureto create Specific culture when youknow the Neutral culture

Not always accurate e.g. you might getes-ES (Spanish Spain) for es where asyou wanted es-AR (Spanish Argentina)

Doesnt work for zh

Useful for a web application queryingUser Accept languages


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CultureInfo and LCID

Preferred way of creating instances ofCultureInfo is to provide stringidentifiers

You can also use LCID to create

instances of CultureInfo

Some specific cultures can only becreated using LCID

0x0C0A Spanish Spain (same as es-ESand uses default international sort)

0x040A Also Spanish Spain (usestraditional sort)


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Using the CultureInfo class

Enumerating Cultures CultureTypes.AllCultures all cultures that

are actually supported by .NET Framework CultureTypes.NeutralCultures all the

neutral cultures (and also the Invariantculture) that are supported by .NETFramework

CultureTypes.SpecificCultures all thespecific cultures that are supported by .NET

CultureTypes.InstalledWin32Cultures allthe cultures that are currently installed andsuppored on your windows system


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Hard CodeEnumerating Cultures


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The two roles of CultureInfo

CurrentUICulture Localization of userinterface Both Neutral and Specific cultures can be

used to set CurrentUICulture

CurrentCulture - Handling internationaldata (date, time, currencies,characters) Only Specific cultures can be used to set

CurrentCulture

Need not have same value Spanish Application running in US American application running in Japan


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Setting CurrentCulture andCurrentUICulture Implicit Values

CurrentCulture

Picked up from the GetUserDefaultLCID API

Affected by change to Control Panel Regional Options Set Locale

CurrentUICulture

Set by GetUserDefaultUILanguage on

Windows 2000 and Windows XP MUI productswhere the end users can set their UI language

If UI language is not set, set by systemdefault installed language which is the

language of OSs resources


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Setting CurrentCulture andCurrentUICulture

Explicitly setting the values

VB.NET

Imports System.GlobalizationImports System.Threading

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new

CultureInfo(en)

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new

CultureInfo(ja-JP)


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Setting CurrentCulture andCurrentUICulture

Explicitly setting the values


using System.Threading;

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new

CultureInfo(en);

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new

CultureInfo(ja-JP);


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Overriding User Settings

User can change some of the values that areassociated with current culture

Can change date time settings to dd/mm/yyyywhile keeping rest of the settings as en-US

Can change currency to Euro from DM Impacts instances of

CultureInfo.DateTimeFormatInfo,CultureInfo.NumberFormatInfo, CultureInfo.TextInfo etc.

Use CultureInfo.UseUserOverride Set to true by default respects users overrides

Use alternative CultureInfo constructor to set it tofalse


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Hard CodeUsing CultureInfo in API


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Other classes inSystem.Globalization CultureInfo references several other

classes

Calendar

CompareInfo

DateTimeFormatInfo

NumberFormatInfo

TextInfo


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Other classes inSystem.Globalization Classes not referenced by CultureInfo

DaylightTime

RegionInfo

SortKey

StringInfo

TextElementEnumerator


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Other classes inSystem.Globalization Finally the specific calendar classes that

all derive from the base Calendar class GregorianCalendar HebrewCalendar HijriCalendar JapaneseCalendar JulianCalendar KoreanCalendar

TaiwanCalendar ThaiBuddhistCalendar


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RegionInfo class Provides information about

Country/Region

Does not represent preferences of user

Does not depend on users language orculture

Use LCID of a specific culture or two-

letter ISO 3166 region code to createan instance of RegionInfo

Provides information about ISOcurrency symbol and metric usage


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Dealing with Date and Time DateTimeFormatInfo class Defines how DateTime values are formatted and

displayed depending on culture

Contains information such as date patterns, time

patterns and AM/PM designators Use CultureInfo.DateTimeFormat property to

create DateTimeFormatInfo for a specificculture

Use DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfoproperty to get it for invariant culture

Cannot create DateTimeFormatInfo for aneutral culture


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Dealing with Date and Time DateTime value types represent dates

and times between 12:00:00 MidnightJanuary 1 0001 to 11:59:59 P.M.

December 31 9999. Time values are measured in 100

nanosecond units called Ticks

DateTime and TimeSpan

DateTime represents an instant in time

TimeSpan represents a time interval

You can subtract one instance of DateTime

from another to get TimeSpan


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Formatting Date and Time DateTime data type implements

IFormattable allowing it to be formattedas string

Use one or more overloads ofDateTime.ToString to do so

Standard format provider class used forformatting DateTime objects is

DateTimeFormatInfo.


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Format Strings Interpreted as standard format specifiers ifthey are single character and contain only one

of the single format specifiers d, D, t, T, f,F, g, G, M or m, R or r, s, u, U, Y or y

A character other than one listed above

causes exception Format string longer than one character is

treated as custom format Patterns produced by these format specifiers

are culture dependent DateSeparator and TimeSeparator characters

associated with DateTimeFormat property ofcurrent culture do not change value for r, sand u specifiers


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Format StringsFormat specifier Current culture Outputd en-US 4/10/2001

d en-NZ 10/04/2001

d de-DE 10.04.2001

D hi-IN 102001

D en-US Tuesday, April 10, 2001T en-US 3:51:24 PM

T es-ES 15:51:24

f en-US Tuesday, April 10, 2001 3:51 PM

f fr-FR mardi 10 avril 2001 15:51

r en-US Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:51:24 GMTr zh-SG Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:51:24 GMT

s en-US 2001-04-10T15:51:24

s pt-BR 2001-04-10T15:51:24


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Parsing Date and Time Parse and ParseExact can be used to convert

string expression to DateTime

Parse method converts any valid stringrepresentation

ParseExact method converts strings that are of theform you specify

Both method accept format provider allowing youto parse culture specific settings

Parsing a string with just time leads to date inthe DateTime being set to current date. UseDateTimeStyles.NoCurrentDateDefault tooverride


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Parsing Date and Time

C#String MyString = Jan 1, 2002;

DateTime MyDateTime = Date.Parse(MyString);

Console.WriteLine(MyDateTime);


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Parsing Date and Time C#using System.Globalization;

CultureInfo MyCultureInfo = new CultureInfo(ta-

IN");string MyString = "12 2002";

DateTime MyDateTime = DateTime.Parse(MyString,

MyCultureInfo);



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Parsing Date and Time C#using System.Globalization;

CultureInfo MyCultureInfo = new CultureInfo(ta-

IN");string MyString = "12 2002";

DateTime MyDateTime = DateTime.Parse(MyString,

MyCultureInfo);



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Parsing Date and Time


CultureInfo MyCultureInfo = new CultureInfo("en-

US");string MyString = " Tuesday, April 10, 2001";

DateTime MyDateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(MyString,

"D", MyCultureInfo);



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Dealing with Numbers NumberFormatInfo class defines how numericvalues are formatted and displayed depending

on culture Contains information such as currency,

decimal separator and other numeric symbols

To create an instance of this class for: Specific Culture: create an instance of CultureInfo

for that culture and use its NumberFormatproperty

Invariant Culture: use InvariantInfo static member

of NumberFormatInfo or use NumberFormatInfoconstructor Neutral Culture: This class cannot be created for a

Neutral culture


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Hard CodeInventing

NumberFormatInfo Invent a number format that allows us to parse

and display a number as 123|456*, where | isgroup separator and * is the currency symbol


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Resource Model

.NET Framework uses a new resourcemodel

Any serializable object can be aresource (e.g. also sound, images)

Resource model is extensible to newformats

Localization focuses on text, Windows

Forms formats

Fully supported in the .NET CompactFramework for smart devices


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Resource source formats

Text format (.txt) Simple name/value pairs

Only suitable for string resources

ResX XML format (.resx) Simple, (almost) human-readable XML

format

Can include arbitrary objects

Can be created with Visual Studio

Some samples in the .NET FrameworkSDK


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Resource generation process

.resx file XML-based file

Describes resources

.resources file

Binary compiled file

Assembly

Executable withdefault resources

Resource-only satelliteassembly(.resources.dll)

.resx file

.resources file

assembly with resources

resgen

al/compiler


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Loading Resources,Continued

Resource manager can be used to loadboth strings and objects: RM.GetString(mystring, new

CultureInfo(en-NZ) ) RM.GetString (mystring)

RM.GetObject(Button1.Cursor)

Loads requested resources based onThread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture

Fallback hierarchy derived from RFC1766


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Resource FallbackMain AssemblyCodeDefault resources(fallback)

Greeting=HelloFarewell=GoodbyeLogo=

FrenchNo codefr resources

Greeting = BonjourFarewell = Au revoir

French (France) (fr-FR)No codefr-FR resources

Greeting=Salut


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External localization process

Any XML localization tool can be used WinRes: tool for visual editing of

Windows Forms

Contained in .NET Framework SDK

Does not require access to source

3rd party localization tools enabled for thenew resource format:

ForeignDesk http://www.foreigndesk.net(Lionbridge)

Alchemy CATALYSThttp://www.alchemysoftware.ie/
http://www.foreigndesk.net/http://www.alchemysoftware.ie/http://www.alchemysoftware.ie/http://www.foreigndesk.net/


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Localizing a Web-based UI - Stepby Step

Create a folder for your resources say resources

Create plain text version of the stringresources

Use resgen.exe to convert them toCLR binary .resources file

Load these resources at runtimeusing ResourceManager


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Hard CodeMaking it all make sense alocalized ASP.NET application


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Localizing Winforms UI Step byStep

Finish your core application, ideally try tofreeze on code. If not, at least finalize formdesign

Set the Localizable property of your form to

true Select the Language property of your form

to a language you want to localize

Change labels, menus etc to the language inwhich you are localizing

Set the CurrentUICulture in theInitializeComponent method of your form to

the language you want your UI to appear in


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Demo: Localizing a windowsform


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Technical Resources

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ -do checkout the Ask Dr. Internationalfeature

http://www.microsoft.com/india/msdn/- ask questions, attend weekly expertchats and more!

http://www.bhashaindia.com/


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