For an application to run in the international environment for which National Language Support (NLS) provides a base, input methods are needed. The Input Method is an application programming interface (API) that allows you to develop applications independent of a particular language, keyboard, or code set. Each type of input method has the following features:
See the following for more information:
An input method is a set of functions that translates key strokes into character strings in the code set specified by your locale. Input method functions include locale-specific input processing and keyboard controls (for example, Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Lock, and Alt-Graphic). The input method allows various types of input, but only keyboard events are dealt with here.
Your locale determines which input method should be loaded, how the input method runs, and which devices are used. The input method then defines states and their outcome.
When the input method translates a keystroke into a character string, the translation process takes into account the keyboard and the code set you are using. You may want to write your own input method if you do not have a standard keyboard or if you customize your code set.
Many languages use a small set of symbols or letters to form words. To enter text with a keyboard, you press keys that correspond to symbols of the alphabet. When a character in your alphabet does not exist on the keyboard, you must press a combination of keys. Input methods provide algorithms that allow you to compose such characters.
Some languages use an ideographic writing system. They use a unique symbol, rather than a group of letters, to represent a word. For instance, the character sets used in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan have more than 5,000 characters. Consequently, more than one byte must be used to represent a character. Moreover, a single keyboard cannot include all the required ideographic symbols. You need input methods that can compose multibyte characters.
The /usr/lib/nls/loc directory contains the input methods installed on your system. You can list the contents of this directory to determine which input methods are available to you. Input method file names have the format Language_Territory.im. For example, the fr_BE.im file is the input method file for the French language as used in Belgium.
Through a well-structured protocol, input methods allow applications to support different input without using locale-specific input processing.
In AIX, the input method is provided in the aixterm. When characters typed from the AIXwindows interface reach the server, the characters are in the form of key codes. These key codes are converted into keysyms as defined by the table provided in the client. This table contains mappings for each of the key codes into a predefined set of codes called the keysyms. Any key code generated by a keyboard should have a keysym. These keysyms are maintained and allocated by the MIT X Consortium. The keysyms are passed to the client aixterm terminal emulator. In the aixterm, the input keysysms are converted into file codes by the input method and are then sent to the application. The X server is designed to work with the display adapter provided in the system hardware. The X server communicates with the X client through sockets. Thus, the server and the client can reside on different systems in a network, provided they can communicate with each other. The data from the keyboard enters the X server, and from the server it gets passed to the terminal emulator. The terminal emulator passes the data to the application. When data comes from applications to the display device, it passes through the terminal emulator by sockets to the server and from the server to the display device. See the Input/Output Methods diagram for an illustration of this.
The set of input methods available depends on which locales have been installed and what input methods those locales provide. The name of the input method usually corresponds to the locale. For example, the Greek Input Method is named el_GR, which is the same as the locale for the Greek language spoken in Greece.
When there is more than one input method for a locale, any secondary input method is identified by a modifier that is part of the locale name. For example, there are two input methods for the French locale as spoken in Canada, the default and an alternative method that supports the earlier keyboard. The input method names are:
| fr_CA | Default input method |
| fr_CA@im=alt | Alternative input method |
| fr_CA_64.im | 64-bit input method |
The fr portion of the locale represents the language name (French), and the CA represents the territory name (Canada). The @im=alt string is the modifier portion of the locale that is used to identify the alternative input method. All modifier strings are identified by the format @im=Modifier.
Since the input method is a loadable object module, a different object is required when running in the 64-bit environment. In the 64-bit environment, the input method library will automatically append __64 to the name when searching for the input method. In the example above, the name of the input method would be fr_CA__64.im.
It is possible to name input methods without using the locale name. Since the libIM library does not restrict names to locale names, the calling application must ensure that the name passed to libIM can be found. However, applications should request only modifier strings of the form @im=Modifier and that the user's request be concatenated with the return string from the setlocale (LC_CTYPE,NULL) subroutine.
In order to compose, complex input methods require direct dialog with users. For example, the Japanese Input Method may need to show a menu of candidate strings based on the phonetic matches of the keys you enter. The feedback of the key strokes appears in one or more areas on the display. The input method areas are:
National Language Support Overview for Programming.
Understanding Locale Subroutines.
