The output of this dynamic page is dependent on your browser settings, installed fonts, and which encoding you choose. If text displays incorrectly, you may need to change the encoding at the bottom of each Locale Explorer page.
It may be that you do not have the proper font selected, or the font you have selected is missing some letters. On Netscape, go into Edit -> Preferences and select the Fonts sub panel. On Microsoft Internet Explorer, go into the Internet Options dialog and click on Fonts.Also make sure the right encoding is selected.
An Encoding is the specific method used to transfer letters to your browser. Each encoding has a specific charset, or set of characters which it understands how to handle. UTF-8 is the preferred encoding to use, as it can transfer directly any Unicode value (and therefore, any text which the Locale Explorer tries to show.) However, if your browser does not understand UTF-8 or does not have the appropriate fonts, you may choose from among several other industry-standard encodings. Be aware that some encodings will not be able to encode specific characters. If you try to view a Greek locale using the iso-8859-1 (Latin-1, Western European) encoding, you will simply see many \uXXXX letters (see below). Check your browser settings to see which encodings it supports.The Locale Explorer will attempt to negotiate an encoding with your browser, however you may force it to use a different encoding by clicking on the name of the current encoding in the 'Your Settings' box, at the bottom of each Locale Explorer page.
This is because the encoding you have chosen does not support the unicode character selected. Since the purpose of the Locale Explorer is educational, it displays the Unicode value instead of a questionmark. Note that the Sort, Numberformat, and Dateformat demos all accept the \uXXXX notation in their input fields. ("\u" was chosen because this format is also used in ICU locale bundle files, and is a standard feature of Java as well.)
Drawing of some scripts, such as Arabic, depends heavily on the browser and OS having the correct fonts and drawing support. As well, scripts which are written right-to-left (such as Arabic or Hebrew) depend on the browser/OS to understand drawing text in this direction. The Locale Explorer does not attempt to correct for these situations.
On the Macintosh, drag fonts into your System Folder icon and restart your browser. On Windows, bring up the Fonts control panel. On X Windows, use 'man mkfontdir' and 'man xset' for more information.
The Locale Explorer uses a module called the Decomposition Callback when it cannot output a character in a specific encoding. It attempts a 'Unicode canonical character decomposition' to break accented and ligature characters apart, and then looks for possible substitutions for the decomposed forms.As an example, set the Locale Explorer encoding to iso-8859-1 and view Hungarian. 'Monday' in Hungarian ends with an 'o with double acute accent'. This is decomposed into 'o' + 'double-acute'. O can be output as just a normal o. The double-acute is turned into a doublequote ("), which is then output. So the result is 'o"' which is certainly more readable than an error character such as '?'.
For this reason, if your fonts are deficient, you may actually get better results (in some cases) by choosing iso-8859-1 or some other encoding, than utf-8.
The resource you asked for did not exist, nor could a suitable default be found.
Used in formatting/parsing Times. Specify the strings to be used for 'am' vs. 'pm'. Ignored if am/pm are not used in that locale.
Specifies the rules to be used for collating (comparing and sorting) text. The rules may be found in the ICU documentation for TableCollator.
Specifies the display name for the given region (ISO-3166) codes. Used for converting a region code of a locale into a displayable name.
These strings are used in parsing/formatting numbers which are designated as currency values.
The first 8 items are different lengths of either date or time patterns. See the localPatternChars (in the locale) for the meanings of special characters.
Quoting rules: Single quotes, ('), enclose bits of the pattern that should be treated literally. Inside a quoted string, two single quotes ('') are replaced with a single one ('). For example: 'class of 'YYYY' at 'h' o''clock' -> class of 1939 at 6 o'clock (Literal strings underlined.)
This resource contains the full and short (abbreviated) names of the days of the week, starting with Sunday.
Display strings for the eras. (2 for the default, Gregorian calendar: BC,AD.)
Display names for language codes. For example, "en" is "English" in English, but it is "inglés" in Spanish.
Hexadecimal Locale ID for this Locale as used by Microsoft Windows. See http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for a description of these ID's.
Full and short (abbreviated) month names, starting with January.
Symbols used in number formatting and parsing. Used in NumberPatterns.
Patterns for formatting different types of numbers. Note that the NumberElements resource affects how these patterns are interpreted.
Quoting rules: Single quotes, ('), enclose bits of the pattern that should be treated literally. Inside a quoted string, two single quotes ('') are replaced with a single one ('). For example: 'X '#' at 'h' o''clock' -> class of 1939 at 6 o'clock (Literal strings underlined.)
2 and 3 letter ISO codes for the language and region, as well as the variant codes.
Version of the ICU data files.
These characters are replaced with the appropriate values when a date or time is being formatted.
Characters may be used multiple times. For example, if y is used for the year, 'yy' might produce '99', whereas 'yyyy' produces '1999'.
For most numerical characters, the number of characters specifies the field width. For example, if h is the hour, 'h' might produce '5', but 'hh' produces '05'. For some characters, the count specifies whether an abbreviated or full form should be used.
Note: In the following list, the default (English) form is used as an example, but see the actual locale for the correct characters!
Localized names for time zones. The columns are, in order:
This example demonstrates sorting (collation) in this locale. Type in some lines of text to be sorted, and click the Sort button. (The notes below explain what happens). You see four different columns as output. The first is the original text for comparison. The lines are numbered to show their original position. The remaining columns show sorting by different strengths (available as a parameter to the collation function). Groups of lines that sort precisely the same are separated by an underline. Since collation treats these lines as identical, lines in the same group could appear in any order (depending on the precise sorting algorithm used).
The demo shows three different strengths used when comparing any two strings:
Note: if you want to enter a character for sorting that is not available from your keyboard, you can type it in by character code using "\u" notation: for example, "ä" is \u00E4, or paste it in from a unicode chart page, such as here [link http://www.macchiato.com/unicode/charts.html].
In this example you can try creating localized patterns and formatting numbers using those patterns.
The top form shows the pattern you are working with. It is the same kind of pattern as the pre-set patterns found in the NumberPatterns resource. Also, see the NumberElements resource for important information on the characters used in each pattern.
The left hand side shows the number that will be formatted. You may change this number (and click Change) to see it's effect on the formatted number.
The right hand side shows the formatted number. You may also change the formatted version of the number (and click Change) to see it converted back onto the left hand side.
Note that you may type in unicode values directly. For example, typing '\u0416' will be replaced with the Cyrillic letter "Zhe", which is at Unicode code point U+0416.
In this example you can try creating localized patterns and formatting dates using those patterns.
The top form shows the pattern you are working with. It is the same kind of pattern as the pre-set patterns found in the DateTimePatterns resource. The characters used in the pattern are the localized pattern characters for that locale. They are reprinted at the bottom of the demo for your convenience.
Below the pattern is the current date/time (at left), and the formatted version using your pattern (at right).
Note that you may type in unicode values directly. For example, typing '\u0416' will be replaced with the Cyrillic letter "Zhe", which is at Unicode code point U+0416.
Clicking 'Transliterate it for me!' will cause any text that is NOT "Latin-1" to be transliterated. All transliteration will show up in green. To remove transliteration, simply change your encoding to something else. What is Transliteration? Click here to learn more!