Internationalization is a process whereby information is tailored to the user's specific geographical, political, or cultural preference. In the Java SE Platform, internationalization support is integrated into the java.util.Locale class, as well as other classes and packages that provide language- or culture-dependent functionality. This article describes the Locale class and its important features, as well as touches upon some of the important classes that are affected by locale.
Supported Locales
The Java SE 6 runtime environment (JRE) for Windows may be installed as a complete international version or as a European languages version. The JRE installer by default installs a European languages version if it recognizes that the host operating system supports only European languages. Only if the installer recognizes that any other language is needed, or the user requests support for non-European languages in a customized installation, is a complete international version installed.
The JRE for Solaris and Linux and the JDK for any platform are always installed as complete international versions. Here is a list of supported locales in JDK 6:
|
|
Country |
Locale ID |
|---|---|---|
|
Albanian |
Albania |
sq_AL |
|
Arabic |
Algeria |
ar_DZ |
|
Arabic |
Bahrain |
ar_BH |
|
Arabic |
Egypt |
ar_EG |
|
Arabic |
Iraq |
ar_IQ |
|
Arabic |
Jordan |
ar_JO |
|
Arabic |
Kuwait |
ar_KW |
|
Arabic |
Lebanon |
ar_LB |
|
Arabic |
Libya |
ar_LY |
|
Arabic |
Morocco |
ar_MA |
|
Arabic |
Oman |
ar_OM |
|
Arabic |
Qatar |
ar_QA |
|
Arabic |
Saudi Arabia |
ar_SA |
|
Arabic |
Sudan |
ar_SD |
|
Arabic |
Syria |
ar_SY |
|
Arabic |
Tunisia |
ar_TN |
|
Arabic |
United Arab Emirates |
ar_AE |
|
Arabic |
Yemen |
ar_YE |
|
Belarusian |
Belarus |
be_BY |
|
Bulgarian |
Bulgaria |
bg_BG |
|
Catalan |
Spain |
ca_ES |
|
Chinese (Simplified) |
China |
zh_CN |
|
Chinese (Simplified) |
Singapore |
zh_SG |
|
Chinese (Traditional) |
Hong Kong |
zh_HK |
|
Chinese (Traditional) |
Taiwan |
zh_TW |
|
Croatian |
Croatia |
hr_HR |
|
Czech |
Czech Republic |
cs_CZ |
|
Danish |
Denmark |
da_DK |
|
Dutch |
Belgium |
nl_BE |
|
Dutch |
Netherlands |
nl_NL |
|
English |
Australia |
en_AU |
|
English |
Canada |
en_CA |
|
English |
India |
en_IN |
|
English |
Ireland |
en_IE |
|
English |
Malta |
en_MT |
|
English |
New Zealand |
en_NZ |
|
English |
Philippines |
en_PH |
|
English |
Singapore |
en_SG |
|
English |
South Africa |
en_ZA |
|
English |
United Kingdom |
en_GB |
|
English |
United States |
en_US |
|
Estonian |
Estonia |
et_EE |
|
Finnish |
Finland |
fi_FI |
|
French |
Belgium |
fr_BE |
|
French |
Canada |
fr_CA |
|
French |
France |
fr_FR |
|
French |
Luxembourg |
fr_LU |
|
French |
Switzerland |
fr_CH |
|
German |
Austria |
de_AT |
|
German |
Germany |
de_DE |
|
German |
Luxembourg |
de_LU |
|
German |
Switzerland |
de_CH |
|
Greek |
Cyprus |
el_CY |
|
Greek |
Greece |
el_GR |
|
Hebrew |
Israel |
iw_IL |
|
Hindi |
India |
hi_IN |
|
Hungarian |
Hungary |
hu_HU |
|
Icelandic |
Iceland |
is_IS |
|
Indonesian |
Indonesia |
in_ID |
|
Irish |
Ireland |
ga_IE |
|
Italian |
Italy |
it_IT |
|
Italian |
Switzerland |
it_CH |
|
Japanese (Gregorian calendar) |
Japan |
ja_JP |
|
Japanese (Imperial calendar) |
Japan |
ja_JP_JP |
|
Korean |
South Korea |
ko_KR |
|
Latvian |
Latvia |
lv_LV |
|
Lithuanian |
Lithuania |
lt_LT |
|
Macedonian |
Macedonia |
mk_MK |
|
Malay |
Malaysia |
ms_MY |
|
Maltese |
Malta |
mt_MT |
|
Norwegian (Bokmål) |
Norway |
no_NO |
|
Norwegian (Nynorsk) |
Norway |
no_NO_NY |
|
Polish |
Poland |
pl_PL |
|
Portuguese |
Brazil |
pt_BR |
|
Portuguese |
Portugal |
pt_PT |
|
Romanian |
Romania |
ro_RO |
|
Russian |
Russia |
ru_RU |
|
Serbian (Cyrillic) |
Bosnia and Herzegovina |
sr_BA |
|
Serbian (Cyrillic) |
Montenegro |
sr_ME |
|
Serbian (Cyrillic) |
Serbia |
sr_RS |
|
Slovak |
Slovakia |
sk_SK |
|
Slovenian |
Slovenia |
sl_SI |
|
Spanish |
Argentina |
es_AR |
|
Spanish |
Bolivia |
es_BO |
|
Spanish |
Chile |
es_CL |
|
Spanish |
Colombia |
es_CO |
|
Spanish |
Costa Rica |
es_CR |
|
Spanish |
Dominican Republic |
es_DO |
|
Spanish |
Ecuador |
es_EC |
|
Spanish |
El Salvador |
es_SV |
|
Spanish |
Guatemala |
es_GT |
|
Spanish |
Honduras |
es_HN |
|
Spanish |
Mexico |
es_MX |
|
Spanish |
Nicaragua |
es_NI |
|
Spanish |
Panama |
es_PA |
|
Spanish |
Paraguay |
es_PY |
|
Spanish |
Peru |
es_PE |
|
Spanish |
Puerto Rico |
es_PR |
|
Spanish |
Spain |
es_ES |
|
Spanish |
United States |
es_US |
|
Spanish |
Uruguay |
es_UY |
|
Spanish |
Venezuela |
es_VE |
|
Swedish |
Sweden |
sv_SE |
|
Thai (Western digits) |
Thailand |
th_TH |
|
Thai (Thai digits) |
Thailand |
th_TH_TH |
|
Turkish |
Turkey |
tr_TR |
|
Ukrainian |
Ukraine |
uk_UA |
|
Vietnamese |
Vietnam |
vi_VN |
Retrieving Information from the Current Locale
You can query a Locale instance for information about itself via several get methods. Use getCountry() to get the ISO country code and getLanguage() to get the ISO language code. To get the name of the country that is displayed to the user, you can use getDisplayCountry(). Similarly, you can use getDisplayLanguage() to get the name of the displayed language. All of the getDisplayXXX() methods are locale-sensitive and have two versions: one that uses the default locale and one that accepts the locale as an argument.
Querying methods offered by the Locale class include:
getDefault(): This method returns the default locale of the JVM.getLanguage(): This method returns the language code of the current locale. Language codes are the lowercase two-letter codes as defined by ISO-639.getCountry(): This method returns the country code of the current locale. Country codes are the uppercase two-letter codes as defined by ISO-3166.getVariant(): This method returns the variant code for the current locale. (See below for an explanation of the variant property.)getDisplayName(): This method returns a name for the current locale that is appropriate for display to the user.
The following example would print information about the default locale:
The output of this example would look something like this:
Each class that performs locale-sensitive operations allows you to get all the available objects of that type. For instance, you can sift through these objects by language, country, or variant, and use the display names to present a menu to the user. Locale-sensitive classes must implement a minimum of these three static class methods:
public static Locale[] getAvailableLocales()public static String getDisplayName(Locale objectLocale, Locale displayLocale)public static final String getDisplayName(Locale objectLocale): This method will throw a MissingResourceException if the locale is not one of the available locales.
Here's some code that would print the same information as above for all available locales:
The above code would display something like the following, and far more (output truncated for brevity)!
Creating a New Locale
A Locale object can be created using one of three constructors:
Locale(String language)Locale(String language, String country)Locale(String language, String country, String variant)
The language argument is a valid ISO language code, which is composed of the lowercase, two-letter codes as defined by ISO-639.
Here are a few language code examples:
|
Language |
Code |
|
Arabic |
ar |
|
German |
de |
|
English |
en |
|
Spanish |
es |
|
Japanese |
ja |
|
Hebrew |
iw |
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