Is there any way to convert ISO 4217 numeric code to currency code like this:
978 -> EUR
I checked Apple docs and I found only how can I take EUR
Here is what I searched:
Locale
Locale spesific
There is no API available in iOS (or any other Apple OS) that provides information about ISO 4217 codes. You will need to create your own mapping.
I would find a definitive list of codes (perhaps Wikipedia or the ISO website) and put the codes in a plist file. Then write a simple Locale extension that lets you get a currency code from a 4217 code.
As rmaddy suggested I made a plist with iso4217 codes and did my own mapping, here is the playground for anyone who wants it.
Can't get what ISO standards are actual nowadays for locales and languages. Where i can find such info?
I want to standardize languages and locales in my project.
I found the 639 standard for languages, but it is said that it is obsolete. Should I use 639-1 then? Should I use ISO 3166-2 for country codes then, to make locales by myself?
ISO 639 is the way to go for language codes: it is a 'superset' of standards for language codes with different lengths. Two-letter language codes, for example, can be found in ISO 639-1. You will have to decide if ISO 639-1 covers all languages that you need or not: if not, switch to ISO 639-2 or 639-3 (although even ISO 639-3 does not cover all languages in the world yet).
The 'obsolete' info that you saw most likely refers to the list that is kept on the w3c website: language codes do change from time to time.
See also this question for a more detailed answer - although I do not agree with all details given there.
To build your locale just combine language and country code (from ISO 3166), as you suggested. Two letter codes are more common than three letter codes: use them if they support all locales that you need.
The most authoritative guidance on this topic is IETF BCP 47, which recommends that you use the shortest code that is available for a language. So if both a two-letter code (ISO 639-1) and a three-letter code (ISO 639-2) are available, IETF BCP 47 recommends that you use the two-letter code.
I know utf8,but what's the difference between *.utf8?
From the answer to my post
Locale = ja_JP
Encoding = UTF-8
Before Unicode, handling non-english characters was done using tricks like Code Pages (like this) and special character sets (like this: Shift_JIS). UTF-8 contains a much larger range of characters with a completely different mapping system (i.e. the way each character is addressed by number).
When setting ja_JP.UTF8 as the locale, the "UTF8" part signifies the encoding for the special characters needed. For example, when you output a currency amount in the Japanese locale, you will need the ¥ character. The encoding information defines which character set to use to display the ¥.
I'm assuming there could exist a ja_JP.Shift_JIS locale. One difference to the UTF8 one - among others - would be that the ¥ sign is displayed in a way that works in this specific encoding.
Why ja_JP?
The two codes ja_JP signify language (I think based on this ISO norm) and country (based on this one). This is important if a language is spoken in more than one country. In the german speaking area, for example, the Swiss format numbers differently than the germans: 1'000'000 vs. 1.000.000. The country code serves to define these distinctions within the same language.
In which context? ja_JP tells us that the string is in the Japanese language. That does not have anything to do with the character encoding, but is probably used - depending on context - for sorting, keyboard input and language on displayed text in the program.
At a guess, I'd say each utf8 file with that naming convention contains a language definition for translating your site.
It's a locale name. The basic format is language_COUNTRY. ja = Japanese language, JP = Japan.
In addition to a date format, currency symbol, etc., each locale is associated with a character encoding. This is a historical legacy from the days when every language had its own encoding. Now, UTF-8 provides a common encoding for every locale.
The reason .UTF8 is part of the locale name is to distinguish it from older locales with a different encoding. For example, there's an ja_JP.EUC-JP locale available on my system. And for Germany, there's the choice of de_DE (obsolete pre-Euro locale with ISO-8859-1 encoding), de_DE#euro (ISO-8859-15 encoding, to provide the € sign), and de_DE.UTF-8.
This seems like a stupid question. Is the number "10" refered to "10" in Hebrew, Arabic, and all languages? I'm not seeing anywhere where it says you need to do anything special with numbers when dealing with localization. Maybe number format but what about the number itself? I would think that numbers would read differently in right-to-left languages but translate.google.com is giving me the same number back. Can anyone confirm this?
Arabic and Japanese (?) do have different glyphs for numbers, but the standard system is so commonplace, that usually numbers are not converted.
If you're using the .NET formatting functions, then the numbers will be formatted according to the system preferences (I'm talking commas and decimal points here)
Different languages can use different digit sigils;
Number representation is different. eg 1,234.56 in English is represented as 1.234'56 in German.
So the answer is yes.
The digits 0-9 usually don't require any localization, except minor tweaks like AndreyT said, but those are more "fonts" related than anything.
The only important thing to take into account is large number representation.
For example, take 1mio$
In Switzerland, it will be:
$1'000'000.-
in US
$1,000,000
In Japan it will be
$100万
I don't know other place, but you got the idea.
For Japan, it's very uncommon to see numbers greater than 10'000 without using a kanji.
But I think you should see with the person doing the localization.
For the actual numbers themselves (and not floating poing, thousands seperator, etc) there are in fact differences between languages.
Hebrew numerals actually use the Hebrew letters as a number system, though it is used only for "traditional" numbers, such as the year in the Jewish calendar, the chapter, verse and page numbers in the Hebrew Bible, in lists (similar to using roman numerals instead of numbers), etc. But for all other cases, Hindu-Arabic numerals are used (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4...) and are written left-to-right, even while the rest of the Hebrew text is written right-to-left (i.e. NML KJIHG 123 FEDC BA).
In Arabic, most countries use the Arabic-Indic numerals, but the Hindu-Arabic numerals are also understood.
In any case, .NET localization should take care of all conversions and display issues, and there's nothing special you need to do unless you render your own GUI.
There quite a few tings that can be localized in numbers. For example, in USA the fractional part of a number (if it has a fractional part) is separated by a dot, while in Russia a comma is normally used. In USA commas would be used to separate three-digit groups in the number, while in Russia it is not customary to separate them at all, or space is used for that purpose (or maybe some other character, but not a comma). And so on (although most of the formatting options apply to monetary quantities).
Even the preferred way to write characters themselves can depend on locale. In USA the character for '7' is usually written in two strokes, while in Europe it quite often has a third stroke - a short horizontal line through the middle. This, of course, is less important, since the two-stroke version is still recognized everywhere.
If you are displaying the numbers for math purposes (for example, showing 5 + 3 = 8), then use the standard digits 0-9. These are used nearly universally in mathematics.
If you are displaying something that is highly localized
(i.e. pricing on a street vendor's point-of-sale system in Saudi Arabia), there are a handful of countries that use different digits that are localized to their respective languages.
Most regions of people in the world will be fine with understanding 0-9 though.
I found this website to be a good starting guide: https://phrase.com/blog/posts/number-localization/
Some examples:
Bengali, for example, uses the Bengali–Assamese numeral system, whose
digits differ from the Western Arabic system: ০, ১, ২, ৩, ৪, ৫, ৬, ৭,
৮, ৯.
In some locales like Saudi Arabia, for example, it’s common to
represent numbers in the local numeral system, Eastern Arabic, and not
the Western Arabic system.
Keep in mind that we are just talking about digits here. When it comes to fractions (/), decimals (.), percentages (%), large number separators (,), number symbols (#), etc. most regions have specific rules and that's a whole other topic. They are not universal.
Could you suggest me a code or a library (possibly java) to convert digits (e.g. 24) in letters (e.g. twenty-four)? Obviously I need to change locale (from English to Italian).
Check this link: http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/3685
You'll have to translate the numbers into italian, but apart from that it should solve your problem.
/Klaus