Solaris Internationalization Overview
This section discusses some general information about internationalization and localization.
The Solaris 9 product includes full Unicode 3.1 support, as defined in Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646, for selected locales. The Solaris 9 release is a major release for Sun's international markets. It includes a number of new features.
The Solaris 9 operating environment has been designed to speak the languages of the world since its inception. With a pluggable, service-based approach to globalization, the Solaris internationalization architecture eases development, deployment and management of applications and language services around the world. In one convenient, multilingual product, users benefit from extensive support for 39 different languages and 162 locales, including complex text layout environments needed to support Thai and Hindi, and bidirectional layout environments for languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
The Solaris internationalization architecture provides a flexible and pluggable method of handling input methods, character set encodings, codeset conversion and other basic aspects of language services. You can choose between the powerful tools already provided, or customize your environment. You can deploy applications in multiple language environments without knowing how input methods work or which codeset converter needs to be enabled, simply by following standard APIs. You can also customize particular language attributes. The architecture enables you to change converter tables or add a new input method editor.
The source code for the Solaris X globalization framework was released to the open community in the fall of 2000. You now have the ability to enhance compatibility and interoperability of global applications by following a common reference implementation while also participating in the evolution of the code base. The codeset independent approach to globalization enables you to operate in native encoded environments or join the growing world of Unicode. The Solaris framework gives the power to scale across platforms with a rich set of data converters designed to ensure interoperability between various encodings and various platforms (from Microsoft Windows or Macintosh, for example).
Solaris also helps multinational corporations scale their server administration worldwide. Unlike competitive platforms, the Solaris platform uses a service-based approach to administration of language services. Server administrators can enable language services remotely across a worldwide network, regardless of the client system. This client-independent approach enables the easy upgrade of the system without changing client applications. For example, an Arabic-speaking user needing to read an email from an internet cafe in Paris would still be able to read that email in his or her own language without modifying the local client application.
New Internationalization and Localization Features
The following features are new to the Solaris 9 release:
Additional Unicode (UTF-8 ) locale support features for Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Finland, and Belgium (Walloon).
Latin-3 character support in Unicode locales.
Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong) Big5+HKSCS locale (zh_HK.BIG5HK).
Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong) UTF-8 locale (zh_HK.UTF-8).
Thai UTF-8 locale (th_TH.UTF-8).
Hindi UTF-8 locale (hi_IN.UTF-8).
ISCII iconv module to support conversion between ISCII and UTF-8 encodings.
New zh_CN.GB18030 locale to support the new GB18030-2000 standard.
New Chinese input methods.
Thai input methods enhancement.
Input Method Auxiliary Window support for Asian Solaris.
Additional Japanese iconv module conversions for Fujitsu JEF, Hitachi KEIS and NEC JIPS.
Euro currency. Only those locales participating in using the euro have the euro symbol defined as their national currency symbol. The other ISO8859-15 locales support the euro symbol
.Enhanced Unicode iconv modules. The iconv modules have been added and enhanced for various new Unicode encoding formats and international and de facto industry standard codesets.
Unicode 3.1 support in Unicode locales.
Support of new iconv code conversions for ISO8859-16.
Internationalization and Localization Defined
Internationalization and localization are different procedures. Internationalization is the process of making software portable between languages or regions, while localization is the process of adapting software for specific languages or regions. Internationalized software can be developed using interfaces that modify program behavior at runtime in accordance with specific cultural requirements. Localization involves establishing online information to support a language or region, called a locale.
Unlike software that must be completely rewritten before it can work with different native languages and customs, internationalized software does not require rewriting. The internationalized software can be ported from one locale to another without change. The Solaris system is internationalized, providing the infrastructure and interfaces you need to create internationalized software.