Linux® Programming by Example

Chapter 13. Internationalization and Localization

In this chapter

• 13.1 Introduction page 486

• 13.2 Locales and the C Library page 487

• 13.3 Dynamic Translation of Program Messages page 507

• 13.4 Can You Spell That for Me, Please? page 521

• 13.5 Suggested Reading page 526

• 13.6 Summary page 526

• Exercises page 527

Early computing systems generally used English for their output (prompts, error messages) and input (responses to queries, such as “yes” and “no”). This was true of Unix systems, even into the mid-1980s. In the late 1980s, beginning with the first ISO standard for C and continuing with the POSIX standards of the 1990s and the current POSIX standard, facilities were developed to make it possible for programs to work in multiple languages, without a ...