Software Internationalization Guide

Understanding Internationalization Concepts

Software Internationalization Guide—526225-002

1-5

Internationalization Standards

Many internationalization standards are currently being defined. Two of the most

widely recognized are the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) defined by the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the X/Open Portability

Guide (XPG) defined by X/Open. Together, these standards provide many of the

guidelines followed throughout the industry.

See Section 3, POSIX and XPG Internationalization Model, for more information.

Introduction to the HP Internationalization

Subsystem

The goal of internationalization is to develop applications that can meet the needs of a

global audience. The HP internationalization subsystem follows the POSIX and XPG4

standards, using a set of utilities that function according to POSIX and XPG4

specifications. See Section 3, POSIX and XPG Internationalization Model, for more

information.

The HP internationalization subsystem is currently supported only on the HP Open

System Services (OSS) environment. The internationalization subsystem uses a set of

internationalized functions written in the C language. Programmers use the

internationalization subsystem to set locales, write locale-independent code, create

message catalogs, and convert between code sets.

Figure 1-4 on page 1-6 shows the components of an internationalized application.

Figure 1-3. Separating Program Source Code From Culturally Sensitive Data

Program Source Code

data types,

variables,

data structures,

algorithms,

...

Culturally Sensitive Data

messages,

date formats,

time formats,

currency formats,

collation scheme,

...

Internationalized

Software

Product

VST003.vsd