Globalization in C#

Question

Can somebody explain to me what is the use of globalization in C#?

Is it used for conversion purposes? I mean I want to convert any English word into a selected language.

So will this globalization or cultureinfo help me?

Answer 1

Globalization is a way of allowing the user to customize the application that he or she may be using to fit the standards where they may be. Cusomtization allows for the:

1. Money Formatting
2. Time
3. Date
4. Text orientation

To be culturally appropriate. The region that is currently set is handled by the OS and passed to your application. Globalization/Internationalization(I18n) also typically motivates the developer to separate the displayed text of the program from the implementation its self.

Answer 2

Globalization is a means of formatting text for specific cultures. E.g. a string representation of the number 1000 may be 1,000.00 for the UK or 1'000,00 for France. It is quite an in depth subject but that is the essential aim. It is NOT a translation service, but it does allow you to determine the culture under which your application is running and therefore allow you to choose the language you want to display. You will have to provide text translation yourself, however, usually be means of resource files.

Answer 3

From MSDN:

System.Globalization - contains classes that define culture-related information, including the language, the country/region, the calendars in use, the format patterns for dates, currency and numbers, and the sort order for strings.

This assembly helps in making your application culture-aware, and is used heavily internally within the .NET framework. For example, when converting from Date to String, Globalization is used to determine what format to use, such as "11/28/2009" or "28-11-2009". Generally this determination is done automatically within the framework without you ever using the assembly directly. However, if you need to, you can use Globalization directly to look up culture-specific information for your own use.

Answer 4

To clear some confusion:

Globalisation: Allowing your program to use locale specific resources loaded from an external resource DLL at runtime. This means putting all your strings in resource files rather than hard coding them into the source code.

Localisation: Adapting your program for a specific locale. This could be translating Strings and making dialog boxes read right-to-left for languages such as Arabic.

Here is a link to creating Satellite DLLs. Its says C++ but it the same principle applies to C#.

Answer 5

To clear even more confusion

Localization (or Localisation for non-US people), L10n for short: process of adapting program for a specific location. It consist of translating resources, adapting UI (if necessary), etc.

Internationalization, i18n for short: process of adapting program to support localization, regional characters, formats and so on and so forth, but most importantly, the process of allowing program to work correctly regardless of current locale settings and OS language version.

Globalization, g11n for short: consist of both i18n and L10n.