Computer users all over the world expect to interact with their systems using their own local languages and cultural conventions. As a developer aiming for international acceptance of your products, you must create software with flexibility for modifying input and output conventions to comply with local expectations. You must also provide the capability for translating interfaces and messages without necessitating many different language versions of your software.

Although the Internationalization Module makes it as easy as possible to create a global application, your effectiveness and efficiency in using the library will be increased if you become familiar with some basic concepts. This chapter includes:

• Basic terminology for discussing global software, such as the distinction between internationalization and localization, and the concept of a named locale

• Overview of how text is represented in computers, including a conceptual framework for discussing the hundreds of different character encodings in use around the world

• Overview of the Unicode Standard, a universal system for handling written characters and text

• Overview of the ISO-10646 Standard

• Techniques for representing multilingual text in C++