Locale : Java Glossary

a geographic or political region that shares the same language and customs. Programs can be customised to a language, country and style. Locales have been given standard identifiers, e.g. Locale.CANADA, Locale. CANADA_FRENCH, Locale. FRANCE and Locale.US.

JDK (Java Development Kit) 1.7 Locale.getDefault has a bug. It returns USA when it should return Canada.

java.text.NumberFormat uses the current locale by default. You can create a locale specific

import java.text.Numberformat;
//...
NumberFormat nf = NumberFormat.getNumberInstance( someLocale );

You can use that NumberFormat both for input (parsing) and output (formatting):

java.text.DecimalFormatSymbols lets you get and set the individual characters such as getDecimalSeparator() and getGroupingSeparator(). You can translate Strings, Audioclips and Images used by your programs and pack them into java.util.ResourceBundles.

You can set the Locale three different ways:

use the "-Duser.country=us" "-Duser.language=en" options to set the system properties on the java.exe command line. However, they will not show up as system properties, only as Locale.getDefault.
Use Locale.setDefault.
Set the locale in the Windows Control Panel.

Gotchas

Locale.setDefault ( Locale. ITALY) will not have any effect on SimpleDateFormat objects already created. You need to set the default Locale before creating your SimpleDateFormat objects or use the SimpleDateFormat constructor that takes a Locale.

Learning More

Oracle’s tutorial on Localisation

Oracle’s Javadoc on Locale class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

Oracle’s Javadoc on NumberFormat class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

country codes
currency codes
language codes
localisation
properties
ResourceBundle
translation

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