24rd Internationalization and Unicode Conference, Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003 Common XML Locale Repository Dr. Mark Davis Steven R. Loomis IBM San José Globalization Center of Competency Copyright © 2003 IBM Corporation

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository2 Locale Data Confusion Variations in localized data can irritate or confuse users… OS #1: (févr. ) OS #2: (fév)

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository3 Locale Data Problems Mismatched data can be catastrophic… OS #1: 10 records in {Z..Aa} OS #2: 0 records in {Z..Aa}

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository4 What is Locale Data? Locale = identifier string referring to linguistic and cultural preferences Typical data –Dates/times –Numbers –Measurement –Currency –Sorting (Collation) –Translated country and language names

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository5 Where is locale data found? International Components for Unicode (ICU) OpenOffice.org Operating Systems –Linux, Solaris, AIX, Windows, … Java Other vendors: PeopleSoft, Oracle,…

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository6 Team Li18nux is now OpenI18N (part of the Free Standards Group) –Linux Application Development Environment subgroup Common XML Locale Repository project

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository7 Repository Objectives Common XML format for locale data Collect data from platforms Make repository available to the public Validate and release corrected data Enable W3C Web Services –Exchange and display of data in localized form

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository8 Repository Features Version-controlled database HTTP based- browsing or custom tools Compare data between platforms –(Comparisons available now)

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository9 Repository Structure Contents –Common –ICU –Macintosh –OpenOffice.org –Windows? –… Allows migration to Common over time

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository10 Locale Data Markup Language XML "vocabulary" for locale data interchange Data stored in separate files (fr.xml or cs_CZ.xml) Inheritance used: ‘root.xml’ root locale, ‘fr.xml’ for French, ‘fr_CA.xml’ for French, Canada ldml-spec.html

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository11 Locale Naming ISO ISO ISO Variant: en — English fr_BE — French as in Belgium zh_Hant — Traditional Chinese sv_FI_AALAND — Swedish as in Finland (Åland) or RFC-3066 with Keywords: — German as in Germany, Phonebook collation.

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository12 Locale vs. Language IDs In practice, immaterial: –touchstone: what would copy-editors say? A."Theatre Center News: The date of the last version of this document was 2003 年 3 月 20 日. A copy can be obtained for $50,0 or 1.234,57 грн. We would like to acknowledge contributions by the following authors (in alphabetical order): Alaa Ghoneim, Behdad Esfahbod, Ahmed Talaat, Eric Mader, Asmus Freytag, Avery Bishop, and Doug Felt.“ B."Theatre Centre News: The date of the last version of this document was 20/3/2003. A copy can be obtained for $50.00 or 1, Ukrainian Hryvni. We would like to acknowledge contributions by the following authors (in alphabetical order): Alaa Ghoneim, Ahmed Talaat, Asmus Freytag, Avery Bishop, Behdad Esfahbod, Doug Felt, Eric Mader."

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository13 Overall Structure < localeDisplayNames >

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository14 NOTE timezones are not represented; –names of timezones are. currencies are not represented; –names/symbols are.

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository15 Non-localized Data In supplemental data Example: Currency Timezones: Olson Data

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository16 Inheritance fr Janvier, Février… 1, ¤ … fr_CA 1 234,57 $ … fr_LX 1.234,57 € …

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository17 Aliasing ru ru_RU mk Collation

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository18 element

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository19 type attribute <numberFormatStyle type="decimal”> 1 234,57 <numberFormatStyle type="percent”> 123% cs_CZ

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository20 type attribute in Locale <numberFormatStyle type="percent”> 123%

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository21 Standard Keys/Types Collation Traditional, Pinyin, Stroke, Direct (Hindi), posix Calendar Gregorian, Arabic (Religious and Civil), Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Thai (Buddhist)

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository22 draft and standard Unverified data may be marked with draft=true Standard-conforming data may be marked with standard=… –Name: –URL:

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository23 Data Access Normal HTTP request icu/de_DE.xml? version=2.2& currency=pre-euro Accessible by web browser or programmatically.

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository24 XML Format en.xml ar.xml

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository25 Comparison Data en_US.html de_DE.html ar_EG.html

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository26 Open Issues Vetting process being defined Versioning and release of Repository not finalized

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository27 Current Status LDML 1.0 Specification released, and approved by Openi18n steering committee Alpha 1.0 common data released Database available for reporting bugs or feature requests

Atlanta, GA USA – Sept 2003Common XML Locale Repository28 For More Information lade/locale/