Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!zardoz!tgate!ka3ovk!drilex!axiom!adelie!mirror!frog!barr
From: barr@frog.UUCP (Chris Barr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Internationalization of SW
Keywords: internationalization
Message-ID: <1601@frog.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 89 05:00:00 GMT
Expires: 1 Aug 89 04:00
References: <4385@druhi.ATT.COM>
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
Lines: 19

Code structure is important.  I did this a few years ago; we
had to rip out hard-coded text & replace them with data structure
strings, which were loaded (with a performance hit) from an appropriate 
language file, e.g.
   /etc/emacs/french/displays
   /etc/emacs/french/messages
   /etc/emacs/french/input_expected

The user either a) specified -lang french on the command line b) filled an 
environment variable  c) took a system default language.

Text was stored in compressed files, partly to save space, partly to prevent
tampering.  A tool (Pacer Software's) converted ascii input files.  We 
specified all string lengths: minimum & max.  Expected input, e.g. menu 
choices, had to be internationalized, too.  We didn't deal with Kanji
or other 16-bit characters.  There were 1 or 2 characters which proved 
impossible - I forget which.

Also, I believe thousands are delimited with a decimal in Europe.