Internationalization

This topic is part of Global Deployment Terminology.

Internationalization includes designing software to handle and display data, such as text, diagrams, and numbers, according to the orthography or rules of the language as used in a particular locale. Internationalization is often abbreviated as I18N (there are 18 characters between the initial I and the terminal N).

The software might have to input, display, and print characters, sort text, and recognize numbers and dates in different formats, and display and print text right-to-left as well as left-to right. Therefore, certain engineering features must be incorporated into the code to handle these requirements.

Developing an internationalized program means that the feature and code designs do not make assumptions based on a single language or locale and that the source code base simplifies the creation of different language editions of a program.