Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition

Chapter 30. Localization

Developers usually build Web applications in the English language and then, as the audience for the application expands, they then realize the need to globalize the application. Of course, the ideal is to build the Web application to handle an international audience right from the start—but, in many cases, this may not be possible because of the extra work it requires.

With the release of ASP.NET 2.0, a considerable effort has been made to address the internationalization of Web applications. You quickly realize that changes to the API, the addition of capabilities to the server controls, and even Visual Studio itself equip you to do the extra work required more easily to bring your application to an international audience. This chapter takes a look at some of the important items to consider when building your Web applications for the world.

Cultures and Regions

The ASP.NET page that is pulled up in an end user's browser runs under a specific culture and region setting. When building an ASP.NET application or page, the defined culture in which it runs is dependent upon a culture and region setting coming from either the server in which the application is run or from a setting applied by the client (the end user). By default, ASP.NET runs under a culture setting defined by the server.

The world is made up of a multitude of cultures, each of which has a language and a set of defined ways in which it views and consumes numbers, uses currencies, sorts alphabetically, ...