The Internationalization Libraries Group

The internationalization group is a set of developers interested in the design, implementation, and maintanence of the Java internationalization libraries.

Introduction

Internationalization (abreviated "i18n") is the process of designing software so that it can be adapted (localized) to various languages and regions easily, cost-effectively, and in particular without engineering changes to the software. Localization is performed by simply adding locale-specific components, such as translated text, data describing locale-specific behavior, fonts and input methods.

Source Structure

Source for the internationalization libraries is found throughout the JDK workspace. Typically, directories under src/share/classes/java contain the classes and interfaces of the public APIs. Often the implementations of these APIs reside in the corresponding src/share/classes/sun directories. Source that is platform dependent (e.g., input methods) may also reside under the src/[solaris|windows] directories.

Here are some of the locations of the core internationalization libraries.

• src/share/classes/java/lang:
  Contains source for the Character and String classes which implement the Unicode Character Database.

• src/share/classes/java/text:
  Contains source for classes providing locale sensitive services such as DateFormat, NumberFormat, Collator, Normalizer, Bidi, BreakIterator, etc.

• src/share/classes/java/util:
  Contains source for locale utility classes such as Locale, Currency, Calendar, TimeZone, ResourceBundle, etc.

• src/share/classes/sun/[text|util]/resources:
  Contains the locale data needed for the above locale sensitive classes.

• src/share/classes/java/awt/im:
  Contains source for the API classes of the Input Method Framework.

• src/share/classes/sun/awt/im:
  Contains source for the implementation classes of the Input Method Framework.

• src/solaris/classes/sun/awt/fontconfigs, src/windows/classes/sun/awt/windows:
  Contains source for the font configuration files

Building and Rebuilding

After building the whole JDK tree, output class files will be generated under the corresponding directories under build/classes directory. Some of the locale data will be incorporated in the build/lib/ext/localedata.jar file. To rebuild the internationalization library sources, you may want to run gnumake in the following directories:

• make/java/java
• make/java/text
• make/java/util
• make/java/awt

Documentation

• Internationalization Support

Community

• Mailing lists
  • i18n-dev

• Internationalization bloggers
  • Naoto Sato