MACROMEDIA ColdFusion MX, Develop Manual

Page: 372 / 860

372 Chapter 17: Developing Globalized Applications
Introduction to globalization
Globalization lets you create applications for all of your customers in all the languages that you
support. In some cases, globalization can let you accept data input using a different character set
than the one you used to implement your application. For example, you can create a website in
English that lets customers submit form data in Japanese. Or, you can allow a request URL to
contain parameter values entered in Korean.
Your application also can process data containing numeric values, dates, currencies, and times.
Each of these types of data can be formatted differently for different countries and regions.
You can also develop applications in languages other than English. For example, you can develop
your application in Japanese so that the default character encoding is Shift-JIS, your ColdFusion
pages contain Japanese characters, and your interface displays in Japanese.
Globalizing your application requires that you perform one or more of the following actions:
•
Accept input in more than one language.
•
Process dates, times, currencies, and numbers formatted for multiple locales.
•
Process data from a form, database, HTTP connection, e-mail message, or other input
formatted in multiple character sets.
•
Create ColdFusion pages containing text in languages other than English.
Defining globalization
You will probably find several different definitions for globalization. For this chapter,
globalization is defined as an architectural process where you put as much application
functionality as possible into a foundation that can be shared among multiple languages.
Globalization is composed of the following two parts:
•
Internationalization
Developing language-neutral application functionality that can
recognize, process, and respond to data regardless of its representation. That is, whatever the
application can do in one language, it can also do in another. For example, think of copying
and pasting text. A copy and paste operation should not be concerned with the language of the
text it operates on. For a ColdFusion application, you might have processing logic that
performs numeric calculations, queries a database, or performs other operations, independent
of language.
•
Localization
Taking shared, language-neutral functionality, and applying a locale-specific
interface to it. Sometimes this interface is referred to as a skin . For example, you can develop a
set of menus, buttons, and dialog boxes for a specific language, such as Japanese, that
represents the language-specific interface. You then combine this interface with the language-
neutral functionality of the underlying application. As part of localization, you create the
functionality to handle input from customers in a language-specific manner and respond with
appropriate responses for that language.