About This Manual

HP Tru64 UNIX internationalization tools and routines allow you to write programs for use in a number of nations. These tools and routines enable you to write programs with the following features:

An interface that appears to be designed for a nation's users

Source code that is independent of specific native languages and customs

Audience

This manual is intended for experienced applications developers who are writing programs for multinational or non-English language use. Translators who translate the messages displayed by international programs will also find this manual useful.

New and Changed Features

This manual was written for Tru64 UNIX Version 5.1B. The manual has been restructured. The Tru64 UNIX Writing Software for the International Market manual now contains information specific to programming international applications. Material on using the international features of Tru64 UNIX has been moved to a companion manual, Using International Software. This manual also includes changes related to the following:

Chapter 2 has been updated with information on Unicode and dense code locales, *.UTF-8 locales, and enhanced support for the euro currency sign that includes ISO 8859-15 (Latin-9) and UTF-8 locales and additional bitmap fonts.

Information and guidelines for writing translatable message files has been added to Chapter 3.

Organization

This manual is organized as follows:

Chapter 1	Introduces the basic concepts and procedures for writing programs that meet the needs of international users.
Chapter 2	Discusses techniques for handling character sets, cultural data, and language in an internationalized application.
Chapter 3	Explains how to extract and translate text for messages and how to generate and access message catalogs.
Chapter 4	Describes the `curses` Library routines for writing, removing, and reading wide-character data.
Chapter 5	Discusses how to use GUI programming libraries (X, OSF/Motif, and DECwindows Extensions to OSF/Motif) when writing internationalized programs.
Chapter 6	Discusses the source files for a locale, how to write library methods, and how to build and test locales.
Chapter 7	Discusses miscellaneous programming topics that apply to the creation of international applications. Topics include input methods, user-defined characters, sorting, creating reference pages, data file codeset conversion, and font renderers.
Appendix A	Lists and summarizes internationalized functions for locale initialization, character classification, case conversion, character collation, date and time interpretation, text strings, number conversion, multibyte characters, and string manipulation.
Appendix B	Describes support for user-defined characters (UDCs) in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, including information on `cedit` and UDC fonts.
Appendix C	Describes DECterm programming features and restrictions.
Appendix D	Contains complete source files for the sample locale discussed in Chapter 6.
Glossary	Defines terms and acronyms used in this manual.

Related Documentation and Standards

This manual focuses on internationalization from the perspective of the application programmer. A companion manual, Using International Software, focuses on the user of international applications. That manual is part of the operating system documentation set. It describes setup requirements for using applications in different language environments and how to use operating system commands in a multilanguage working environment.

The following manuals in the operating system documentation set provide information about using the C compiler and other program development tools on a Tru64 UNIX system. If you are developing internationalized applications, see these manuals for general programming information.

Programmer's Guide

Programming Support Tools

The Tru64 UNIX Documentation Overview manual provides information on all of the documentation provided with the operating system.

The Tru64 UNIX documentation is available on the World Wide Web at the following URL:


http://www.tru64unix.compaq.com/docs/

The following manual, published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc., is also a good reference:

Programmer's Supplement for Release 6 of the X Window System

The following standards or draft standards apply to software components discussed in this manual. This manual refers to some of these standards.

ANS X3.159 Programming Language C

ISO/IEC 646: 1983
Information processing -- ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange.

ISO 6937: 1983
Information processing -- Coded character sets for text communication.

ISO 8859-1: 1987
Information processing -- ISO 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Latin alphabet No. 1.

ISO/IEC 9899: 1990
Information technology -- programming languages -- C.

ISO/IEC 9945-1: 1990
Information technology - Portable operating system interface (POSIX) - Part 1: System application programming interface (API) [C Language].

ISO/IEC 9945-2: 1993
Information technology -- Portable operating system interface (POSIX) - Part 2: Shells and Utilities.

ISO/IEC 10646:2001
Information Technology — Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) 2001. The Basic Multilingual Plane defined by this standard is identical with the main body of Unicode character encoding.

Code for Information Interchange, JIS X0201-1976; Japanese national standard.

Code of the Japanese Graphic Character Set for Information Interchange, JIS X0208-1990; Japanese national standard.

Code of the Supplementary Japanese Graphic Character Set, JIS X0212-1990; Japanese national standard.

Chinese Character Input Standard, GB18030-2000; National Standards Bureau of China, Beijing, 2001.

Codes of Chinese Graphic Characters for Information Interchange, Primary Set (GB2312-80); National Standards Bureau of China, Beijing, 1980.

Standard Codes of Common Chinese Characters for Information Interchange, CNS 11643; Taiwan, 1986, 1992.

Standard Codes of Korean Characters for Information Interchange, KSC 5601; Korea, 1987.

Thai Industrial Standard, TIS 620-2533; Standard for a primary set of graphic characters used for Thai information interchange.

The Open Group UNIX CAE specifications, specifically:
- Commands and Utilities, XCU Issue 5
- Systems Interfaces and Headers, XSH Issue 5
- System Interface Definitions, Issue 5
- Networking Services, Issue 5
- X/Open Curses, XCURSES, Issue 4 Version 2

The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0 and Version 3.1

XllR6 Specification (including X Input and Output Methods)

Programming for the World: A Guide to Internationalization (O'Donnell, Sandra Martin, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1994) provides information about cultural and linguistic requirements around the world and the changes needed in computer systems to handle those requirements.

Articles in Digital Technical Journal, Volume 5 Number 3 (published Summer 1993) cover topics related to product internationalization.

Reader's Comments

HP welcomes any comments and suggestions you have on this and other Tru64 UNIX manuals.

You can send your comments in the following ways:

Fax: 603-884-0120 Attn: UBPG Publications, ZKO3-3/Y32

Internet electronic mail: readers_comment@zk3.dec.com
A Reader's Comment form is located on your system in the following location:
/usr/doc/readers_comment.txt

Please include the following information along with your comments:

The full title of the manual and the order number. (The order number appears on the title page of printed and PDF versions of a manual.)

The section numbers and page numbers of the information on which you are commenting.

The version of Tru64 UNIX that you are using.

If known, the type of processor that is running the Tru64 UNIX software.

The Tru64 UNIX Publications group cannot respond to system problems or technical support inquiries. Please address technical questions to your local system vendor or to the appropriate HP technical support office. Information provided with the software media explains how to send problem reports to HP.

Conventions

The following conventions are used in this manual:

%: A percent sign represents the C shell system prompt.
$: A dollar sign represents the system prompt for the Bourne and Korn shells.
#: A number sign represents the superuser prompt.
% cat: Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.
file: Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.
[ | ]: In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.
{ | }: In syntax definitions, braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed.
. . .: In syntax definitions, a horizontal ellipsis indicates that the preceding item can be repeated one or more times.
. . .: A vertical ellipsis indicates that a portion of an example that would normally be present is not included.
cat(1): A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, cat(1) indicates that you can find information on the cat command in Section 1 of the reference pages.
Ctrl/x: This symbol indicates that you hold down the first named key while pressing the key or mouse button that follows the slash, for example, Ctrl/c.
Alt x: Multiple key or mouse button names separated by spaces indicate that you press and release each in sequence, for example, Alt Space.