An internationalized system has no built-in assumptions or dependencies on code set, character classification, character comparison rules, character collation order, monetary formatting, numeric punctuation, date and time formatting, or the text of messages. A locale is defined by these language and cultural conventions. An internationalized system processes information correctly for different locations. For example, in the United States, the date format, 9/6/2002, is interpreted to mean the sixth day of the ninth month of the year 2002. The United Kingdom interprets the same date format to mean the ninth day of the sixth month of the year 2002. The formatting of numeric and monetary data is also country-specific, for example, the U.S. dollar and the U.K. pound.
All locale information must be accessible to programs at run time so that data is processed and displayed correctly for your cultural conventions and language. This process is called localization. Localization consists of developing a database containing locale-specific rules for formatting data and an interface to obtain the rules.
The following information is provided for maintaining the locale of your system: