Is there a naming convention for locale-specific static files?

Question

I have some static resources (images and HTML files) that will be localized. One piece of software I've seen do this is Apache, which appends the locale to the name; for example, test_en_US.html or test_de_CH.html. I'm wondering whether this naming scheme is considered standard, or whether every project does it differently.

Answer 1

While there doesn't appear to a standard conventions as to where in the file name to place them, the international codes for language (e.g. "en") and region (e.g. "en-US") are both very common and very straightforward. Variations I've seen, excluding "enUS" vs. "en_US" vs. "en-US":

• foo.enUS.ext
• foo.ext_enUS
• enUS.foo.ext
• foo/enUS.ext
• enUS/foo.ext
• …ad nauseum

I personally favor the first and last variants. The former for grouping files by name/resource (good for situations in which a limited number of files need localized) and the latter for grouping files by locale (better for situations with a large number of localized files).

Answer 2

While there is no documented standard for naming Localized files, I'd recommend using the format filename[_language[ _country]] where

• language is the ISO-639 2 letter language code
• territory is the ISO-3166 2 letter country code

For example:

• myFile.txt (non-localized file)
• myFile_en.txt (localized for global English)
• myFile_en_US.txt (localized for US English)
• myFile_en_GB.txt (localized for UK English)

Why? This is the most typical format used by operating systems, globalization tools (such as Trados and WorldServer), and programming languages. So unless you have a particular fondness for a different format, I see no reason to deviate from what most other folks are doing. It may save you some integration headaches down the road.