Internationalization and Localization - Coding Practice

Coding Practice

The current prevailing practice is for applications to place text in resource strings which are loaded during program execution as needed. These strings, stored in resource files, are relatively easy to translate. Programs are often built to reference resource libraries depending on the selected locale data. One software library that aids this is gettext. No prior internationalization need be in place.

Thus to get an application to support multiple languages one would design the application to select the relevant language resource file at runtime. Resource files are translated to the required languages. This method tends to be application-specific and, at best, vendor-specific. The code required to manage date entry verification and many other locale-sensitive data types also must support differing locale requirements. Alternatively there is an emerging class of software which can localize an application without altering the underlying code in any way Modern development systems and operating systems include sophisticated libraries for international support of these types.

Some tools help in detecting i18n issues and guiding software resolution of those issues, such as Lingoport's Globalyzer or Parasoft Test.