Behavior Affected by Locales

Different cultures often use different conventions to format numbers, to write the date and time, to delimit words and phrases, or to quote written and spoken material. A locale determines how the following operations, files, formats, and expressions are handled for different regions:

• Encoding and processing of text data

• Language identification and encoding of resource files

• Rendering and layout of text strings

• Interchange of text between clients

• Input method selection to meet the codeset and text processing requirements of the chosen script

• Font and icon files that are culturally specific

• Actions and file types

• User Interface Definition (UID) files

• Date and time formats

• Numeric formats

• Monetary formats

• Collation order

• Regular expression handling specific to the locale

• Format for informative and diagnostic messages and interactive responses

The Oracle Solaris environment separates language and culture-dependent information from the application and saves the information outside the application. This method eliminates the need to translate, rewrite, or recompile the application for each market. The only requirement to enter a new market is to localize the external information to the local language and customs.