Language Support

The Solaris system builds inherent internationalization features into every localized product. Localization facilities support the ANSI C recommendations for internationalization and localization that define the locale and related categories.

Locales Attributes

A locale contains the culturally specific information and conventions of the language for a particular global region. Each process in the Solaris Operating System has the following set of locale attributes:

• Locale settings, which provide the locale and setlocale commands you use to list and set attributes before you start a process from the command line.

  For example, the Traditional Chinese locales and the English/ASCII locale both have a category that defines the display of time and date according to the cultural format, as well as the actual Traditional Chinese or English/ASCII characters for the time and date.

• Code Sets, which support coding conventions for the CNS11643 and BIG5 character sets. These sets enable you to input, display, and print Traditional Chinese text in file names, system messages, and terminal (TTY), email, and data file content.

• htt input method server, which handles Traditional Chinese input for the Solaris Operating System. The htt server receives your keyboard input and converts it to Traditional Chinese characters that are used in Traditional Chinese applications.

Traditional Chinese Locales

The Traditional Chinese Solaris Operating System provides simultaneous support for the locales in the following table . The locales look the same to the end user, but the internal character encoding is different.

Table 1–1 Traditional Chinese Locales

Locale	Description
zh_TW.EUC (zh_TW)	Traditional Chinese EUC locale (CNS11643-1992)
zh_TW.BIG5	Traditional Chinese BIG5
zh_TW.UTF-8	Traditional Chinese UTF-8 (Unicode 3.2)
zh_HK.BIG5HK	Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong) BIG5-HKSCS
zh_HK.UTF-8	Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong) UTF-8 (Unicode 3.2)

Traditional Chinese Code Sets

The following table lists supported code sets for each Traditional Chinese locale.

Table 1–2 Traditional Chinese Code Sets

Locale	Code Set
zh_TW.EUC (zh_TW)	cns11643
zh_TW.BIG5	BIG5
zh_TW.UTF-8	UTF-8
zh_HK.BIG5HK	BIG5-HKSCS
zh_HK.UTF-8	Unicode 3.2

Traditional Chinese Input Methods and Fonts

The Traditional Chinese Solaris Operating System provides input methods and fonts that enable you to enter, display, and print any character in any language. The following input methods are supported for the Traditional Chinese locales.

• New ChuYin

• ChuYin

• TsangChieh

• Array

• Boshiamy

• DaYi

• JianYi

• Cantonese

• NeiMa (EUC, BIG5, BIG5-HKSCS)

• English-Chinese

• Optional codetable Input Methods, such as PinYin

For a complete list of fonts supported for the Traditional Chinese locales, see Chapter 9, Fonts.

Input Method Auxiliary Window

The input method auxiliary window supports the following functions:

• Input method switching

• Input methods properties configuration

• Lookup tables for the following character sets:

  • HKSCS

  • CNS11643

  • BIG5

  • Unicode

• User-defined characters

• Input method help

• Virtual keyboard

Locale Categories

You can use the following general and specific categories as defined by ANSI C for the Traditional Chinese and English locales.

• General LC_ALL setting that invokes all of the categories for locale-related aspects of the system.

• Specific settings for particular aspects of the system, which include:

  • LC_CTYPE

  • LC_TIME

  • LC_NUMERIC

  • LC_MONETARY

  • LC_COLLATE

  • LC_MESSAGES

For example, the Traditional Chinese and the English/ASCII locales have the LC_TIME category that defines the display of the time and date according to the cultural format, as well as the actual Traditional Chinese or English/ASCII characters used in the display.