Localization in OOC

["Eric W. Nikitin" <enikitin@apk.net>]

I am starting to work on the Localization chapter for the OOC
Reference Manual, and it's bringing up several issues that could
benefit from discussion on this list.

First of all, currently, the OOC Library provides support for
locales through the modules Locales, LocStrings, LocNumConv,
LocNumStr, LocTextRider, and LocText (although, I believe that, with
respect to user programs, LocNumConv and LocNumStr aren't going to
be used much).  These modules are similar to the facilities provided
by Standard C.  Time and date localization is provided by module
Calendar.  A program's locale is a global property, and it must be
reset every time the program needs to process a different locale.

Although these C-like facilities are minimally sufficient, my
question is, can we do better?  Both Java and C++ provide locale
classes, and other related classes, that allow multiple locales to
be defined within a program, rather than relying on a global
property.  For a quick comparison between these facilities in C and
C++, see

http://suparum.rz.uni-mannheim.de/docs/pgi/pgC++_lib/stdlibug/sta_9169.htm


This also brings up the problem of multi-byte character support,
including Unicode.  Some time ago, there was a little discussion on
adding the type `LONGCHAR' to OOC, is this still under
consideration?  If it is added, then localization should be built
into LONGCHAR related modules.

Here are some other interesting links related to localization (or
internationalization, aka i18n):

http://i44www.info.uni-karlsruhe.de/~drepper/conf96/paper.html
http://www.vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at/mike/i18n.html
http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/docs/guide/intl/index.html


Do any of the other Oberon compilers/systems deal with these sorts
of i18n issues?


Thanks,
Eric