A Locale object represents a specific geographical, political,
or cultural region. An operation that requires a Locale to perform
its task is called locale-sensitive and uses the Locale
to tailor information for the user. For example, displaying a number
is a locale-sensitive operation--the number should be formatted
according to the customs/conventions of the user's native country,
region, or culture.
Create a Locale object using the constructors in this class:
The language argument is a valid ISO Language Code.
These codes are the lower-case, two-letter codes as defined by ISO-639.
You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
The variant argument is a vendor or browser-specific code.
For example, use WIN for Windows, MAC for Macintosh, and POSIX for POSIX.
Where there are two variants, separate them with an underscore, and
put the most important one first. For example, a Traditional Spanish collation
might construct a locale with parameters for language, country and variant as:
"es", "ES", "Traditional_WIN".
Because a Locale object is just an identifier for a region,
no validity check is performed when you construct a Locale.
If you want to see whether particular resources are available for the
Locale you construct, you must query those resources. For
example, ask the NumberFormat for the locales it supports
using its getAvailableLocales method.
Note: When you ask for a resource for a particular
locale, you get back the best available match, not necessarily
precisely what you asked for. For more information, look at
ResourceBundle .
The Locale class provides a number of convenient constants
that you can use to create Locale objects for commonly used
locales. For example, the following creates a Locale object
for the United States:
Locale.US
Once you've created a Locale you can query it for information about
itself. Use getCountry to get the ISO Country Code and
getLanguage to get the ISO Language Code. You can
use getDisplayCountry to get the
name of the country suitable for displaying to the user. Similarly,
you can use getDisplayLanguage to get the name of
the language suitable for displaying to the user. Interestingly,
the getDisplayXXX methods are themselves locale-sensitive
and have two versions: one that uses the default locale and one
that uses the locale specified as an argument.
The Java Platform provides a number of classes that perform locale-sensitive
operations. For example, the NumberFormat class formats
numbers, currency, or percentages in a locale-sensitive manner. Classes
such as NumberFormat have a number of convenience methods
for creating a default object of that type. For example, the
NumberFormat class provides these three convenience methods
for creating a default NumberFormat object:
A Locale is the mechanism for identifying the kind of object
(NumberFormat) that you would like to get. The locale is
just a mechanism for identifying objects,
not a container for the objects themselves.
Localeobject represents a specific geographical, political, or cultural region. An operation that requires aLocaleto perform its task is called locale-sensitive and uses theLocaleto tailor information for the user. For example, displaying a number is a locale-sensitive operation--the number should be formatted according to the customs/conventions of the user's native country, region, or culture.Create a
The language argument is a valid ISO Language Code. These codes are the lower-case, two-letter codes as defined by ISO-639. You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as:Localeobject using the constructors in this class:http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.phpThe country argument is a valid ISO Country Code. These codes are the upper-case, two-letter codes as defined by ISO-3166. You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as:
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.htmlThe variant argument is a vendor or browser-specific code. For example, use WIN for Windows, MAC for Macintosh, and POSIX for POSIX. Where there are two variants, separate them with an underscore, and put the most important one first. For example, a Traditional Spanish collation might construct a locale with parameters for language, country and variant as: "es", "ES", "Traditional_WIN".
Because a
Localeobject is just an identifier for a region, no validity check is performed when you construct aLocale. If you want to see whether particular resources are available for theLocaleyou construct, you must query those resources. For example, ask theNumberFormatfor the locales it supports using itsgetAvailableLocalesmethod.Note: When you ask for a resource for a particular locale, you get back the best available match, not necessarily precisely what you asked for. For more information, look at ResourceBundle .
The
Localeclass provides a number of convenient constants that you can use to createLocaleobjects for commonly used locales. For example, the following creates aLocaleobject for the United States:Once you've created a
Localeyou can query it for information about itself. UsegetCountryto get the ISO Country Code andgetLanguageto get the ISO Language Code. You can usegetDisplayCountryto get the name of the country suitable for displaying to the user. Similarly, you can usegetDisplayLanguageto get the name of the language suitable for displaying to the user. Interestingly, thegetDisplayXXXmethods are themselves locale-sensitive and have two versions: one that uses the default locale and one that uses the locale specified as an argument.The Java Platform provides a number of classes that perform locale-sensitive operations. For example, the
These methods have two variants; one with an explicit locale and one without; the latter using the default locale. ANumberFormatclass formats numbers, currency, or percentages in a locale-sensitive manner. Classes such asNumberFormathave a number of convenience methods for creating a default object of that type. For example, theNumberFormatclass provides these three convenience methods for creating a defaultNumberFormatobject:Localeis the mechanism for identifying the kind of object (NumberFormat) that you would like to get. The locale is just a mechanism for identifying objects, not a container for the objects themselves.