Support for I18N in Java

Java provides a rich set of I18N features in the core library. This section briefly discusses a few of those core features. The I18N support in the Struts framework relies heavily on these components, and understanding how the Java I18N components cooperate with each other will help you understand how to internationalize your Struts applications.

The topic of internationalization is too broad to cover in depth in this book. A more complete discussion of the topic can be found in the book Java Internationalization by Andy Deitsch and David Czarnecki (O’Reilly).

The Locale Class

The java.util.Locale class is undeniably the most important I18N class in the Java library. Almost all of the support for internationalization and localization in or around the Java language relies on this class.

The Locale class provides Java with instances of the locale concept mentioned earlier. A particular instance of the Locale represents a unique language and region. When a class in the Java library modifies its functionality during runtime based on a Locale object, it’s said to be locale-sensitive. For example, the java.text.DateFormat is locale-sensitive because it will format a date differently depending on a particular Locale object.

The Locale objects don’t do any of the I18N formatting or parsing work. They are used as identifiers by the locale-sensitive classes. When you acquire an instance of the DateFormat class, you can pass in a Locale object for the United States. ...

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