Chapter 15

Localization

What's in this chapter?

Understanding culture types

Getting culture settings from a thread

Declaring culture in ASP.NET

Understanding differences in dates

Understanding differences in currency and numbers

Understanding differences in sorting

Using culture specific resource files

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As the audience for an application expands, businesses often realize they need to globalize the application. Of course, the ideal solution is to build the application to handle an international audience right from the start, but in most cases this may not be feasible because building for localized versions requires extra work and cost.

The core of any localization effort is the translation of resources and user interface changes. Such changes are application specific and, therefore, not really open to generic implementation across the multitude of potential cultures for which you might choose to target an application. However, some common elements of localization, such as date support or numeric and currency formats, can be implemented by .NET Framework classes.

The .NET Framework has made a considerable effort to support the internationalization of .NET applications. API support, server controls, and even Visual Studio itself equip you to do the extra work required to bring your application to an international audience. This chapter looks at some of the important items to consider when building your applications for the world.