How client applications use locales.dat

Client applications use the locales.dat file to identify the language and character set to use. The connection process follows these steps:

  1. When a client application starts, it checks the operating system locale setting and then checks the locales.dat file to see if that setting is appropriate for the Cluster Edition. For example, a locale entry for French can look like the following:

    locale = fr_FR, french, iso_1
    
  2. When the client connects to the Cluster Edition, the language and character set information is passed to the Cluster Edition in the login record.

  3. the Cluster Edition then uses:

    • The character set information, for example, iso_1, to identify the client’s character set and verify whether it can convert character data to this character set

    • The language (in the preceding example, French) and character set information to see if it has messages in the client’s language

NoteThe Cluster Edition software includes some locale entries already defined in the locales.dat file. If these entries do not meet your needs, you can either modify them or add new locale entries.