Internationalization is the process of enabling an application to support multiple languages and cultural conventions.
An internationalized application uses external files to provide language-specific information at execution time. Because it contains no language-specific code, an internationalized application can be deployed in any native language environment without code changes. A single version of a software product can be adapted to different languages or regions, conforming to local requirements and customs without engineering changes. This approach to software development saves significant time and money over the lifetime of an application.
Localization is the process of adapting an internationalized product to meet the requirements of one particular language or region, for example Spanish, including providing translated system messages; translations for the user interface; and the correct formats for date, time, and currency. One version of a software product may have many localized versions.
Sybase provides both internationalization and localization support. Adaptive Server includes the character set definition files and sort order definition files required for data processing support for the major business languages in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.
Sybase Language Modules provide translated system messages and formats for Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish. By default, Adaptive Server comes with U.S. English message files.
This chapter describes the available character sets and language modules and summarizes the steps needed to change the default character set, sort order, or message language for Adaptive Server.
