Software Internationalization Guide

The HP Internationalization Subsystem

Software Internationalization Guide—526225-002

4-16

Basic Testing Checklist

Use this checklist to verify that the application complies with the basic code preparation

requirements for internationalization:

•

Is the program source code data transparent?

•

Are all hard-coded messages removed from the source code and stored in a

separate file or files?

•

Is all culturally dependent information removed from the source code? Examples

of culturally-dependent information include date, time, and monetary formats.

•

Are all assumptions about character encoding removed from the source code and

replaced with internationalized functions?

See Preparing Source Code on page 4-4 for a discussion of code preparation

guidelines.

General Testing Guidelines

These guidelines can help ensure that the internationalization aspects of your

application function properly:

•

Verify that the test libraries are themselves internationalized. Use the

setlocale(), nl_langinfo(), and localeconv() functions to return current

locale information to your test libraries.

•

Determine which locale categories will affect the behavior of the application you

are testing, and concentrate tests on areas most likely to be affected. For example,

if the isalpha() function is used, be sure that the only locale category affected is

LC_CTYPE. You can determine the areas that affect the application’s behavior by

finding the XPG4 internationalization functions used in the application, then

checking that the categories are correctly affected. See Locale-Sensitive Functions

on page 4-6 for a list of internationalization functions.

•

Use the localized message catalogs to verify that the mechanism that accesses

messages is functioning correctly and accesses messages appropriate to the

locale setting. If localized message catalogs are not available for testing, you can

create a dummy message catalog to verify that the internationalization mechanism

works according to a selected locale. Be sure the dummy message source file

contains the same number of sets and messages as the localized message

catalog—the content of the file is not critical. Name the dummy message catalog

according to the message catalog naming conventions to verify that the

mechanism that accesses messages is functioning correctly.

•

In addition to run-time testing of an application, conduct code inspections to review

the source code.