HP-UX Directory Server 8.1 administrator guide

D Internationalization
HP-UX Directory Server allows users to store, manage, and search for entries and their associated
attributes in a number of different languages. An internationalized directory can be an invaluable
corporate resource, providing employees and business partners with immediate access to the
information they need in languages they understand.
Directory Server supports all international character sets by default because directory data is
stored in UTF-8. Further, Directory Server can use specified matching rules and collation orders
based on language preferences in search operations.
NOTE:
ASCII characters are required for attribute and object class names.
Topics include:
• “About locales” (page 573)
• “Identifying supported locales” (page 574)
• “Supported language subtypes” (page 575)
• “Troubleshooting matching rules” (page 576)
D.1 About locales
Directory Server provides support for multiple languages through the use of locales. A locale
identifies language-specific information about how users of a specific region, culture, or custom
expect data to be presented, including how data of a given language is interpreted and how data
is to be sorted, or collated.
In addition, the locale information indicates what code page should be used to represent a given
language. A code page is an internal table that the operating system uses to relate keyboard keys
to character font screen displays.
More specifically, a locale defines four things:
• Collation order
The collation order provides language and cultural-specific information about how the
characters of a given language are to be sorted. It identifies things like the sequence of the
letters in the alphabet, how to compare letters with accents to letters without accents, and
if there are any characters that can be ignored when comparing strings. The collation order
also takes into account culture-specific information about a language, such as the direction
in which the language is read (left to right, right to left, or up and down).
• Character type
The character type distinguishes alphabetic characters from numeric or other characters.
For example, in some languages, the pipe (|) character is considered punctuation while in
others it is considered alphabetic. In addition, it defines the mapping of uppercase to
lowercase letters.
• Monetary format
The monetary format specifies the monetary symbol used by a specific region, whether the
symbol goes before or after its value, and how monetary units are represented.
• Time/date format
The time and date format indicates the customary formatting for times and dates in the
region. The time and date format indicates whether dates are customarily represented in
the mm/dd/yy (month, day, year) or dd/mm/yy (day, month, year) format and specifies
what the days of the week and month are in a given language. For example, the date January
10, 1996, is represented as 10.leden 1996 in Czechoslovakian and 10 janvier 1996
in French.
D.1 About locales 573