Internationalization in JAVA

Abhishek Dubey
Feb 11, 2012
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Introduction

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"
Localization- Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding local specific components and translating text; its short name is l10n.

Characteristics of Internationalization:

A textual element such as a status message and the GUI component lavels are not hard coded in the program. Instead, they are stored outside of the source code and retrieved dynamically.
Internationalization supports new language without recompilation.
Other culturally dependent data, such as dates and currencies, appear in formats that conform to the end user's region and language.

Following step follow to create Internationalized application.

For example you have a frame with the two buttons "yes" and "no" and we want to display them in the French language so the button for "yes" changes to "Oui" and "No" changes to "Non" with out recompiling the program.

Step-1 First you create a properties file that stores the information; for creating it we save a simple text file with a .properties extension. For example xyz.properties. Write all the keys and their values using a Text Editor and here you must give any key's name on the left side and and key values on the right side.

Step-2 And save both files named as Msg_en_US.properties and Msg_fr_FR.properties.

Step-3 Defining the Locale Object identifies a particular language and country. The following language defines country.

Step-3 code

import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class Internationalization_Demo extends JFrame
{

String Cap_yes;
String Cap_no;

static String language;
static String country;

JButton Button_yes,Button_no;

static public void main(String[] args)
{
if (args.length != 2)
    {//Use Internationalization_Demo fr FR (French)
        //or
   //Internationalization_Demo en US (US English)
     System.out.println("Use :java Internationalization_Demo Language(Ex-fr,en) country(FR,US)");
     System.exit(1);
    }

language = new String(args[0]);
country = new String(args[1]);

Internationalization_Demo frame=new Internationalization_Demo();
// Event handle for click on close button with the help of anonymous class
frame.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
                           public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
                               System.exit(0);
                           }
                       });
frame.setBounds(0,0,400,200);
frame.setVisible(true);
}//main close

public Internationalization_Demo()
{
Locale locale = new Locale(language, country);
ResourceBundle captions= ResourceBundle.getBundle("Msg",locale);
Cap_yes =captions.getString("yesMsg");
Cap_no = captions.getString("noMsg");
Button_yes = new JButton(Cap_yes);
Button_no = new JButton(Cap_no);
getContentPane().add(Button_yes,BorderLayout.WEST);
getContentPane().add(Button_no,BorderLayout.EAST);
}//Internationalization_Demo construct close
}//Internationalization_Demo class close