User Guide

404 Chapter 17: Developing Globalized Applications
Globalizing your application requires that you perform one or more of the following actions:
• Accept input in more than one language.
• Process dates, times, currencies, and numbers formatted for multiple locales.
• Process data from a form, database, HTTP connection, e-mail message, or other input
formatted in multiple character sets.
• Create ColdFusion pages containing text in languages other than English.
Defining globalization
You will probably find several different definitions for globalization. For this chapter,
globalization is defined as an architectural process where you put as much application
functionality as possible into a foundation that can be shared among multiple languages.
Globalization is composed of the following two parts:
Internationalization Developing language-neutral application functionality that can recognize,
process, and respond to data regardless of its representation. That is, whatever the application can
do in one language, it can also do in another. For example, think of copying and pasting text. A
copy and paste operation should not be concerned with the language of the text it operates on.
For a ColdFusion application, you might have processing logic that performs numeric
calculations, queries a database, or performs other operations, independent of language.
Localization Taking shared, language-neutral functionality, and applying a locale-specific
interface to it. Sometimes this interface is referred to as a skin. For example, you can develop a set
of menus, buttons, and dialog boxes for a specific language, such as Japanese, that represents the
language-specific interface. You then combine this interface with the language-neutral
functionality of the underlying application. As part of localization, you create the functionality to
handle input from customers in a language-specific manner and respond with appropriate
responses for that language.
Importance of globalization in ColdFusion applications
The Internet has no country boundaries. Customers can access websites from anywhere in the
world, at any time, or on any date. Unless you want to lock your customers into using a single
language, such as English, to access your site, you should consider globalization issues.
One reason to globalize your applications is to avoid errors and confusion for your customers. For
example, a date in the form 1/2/2003 is interpreted as January 2, 2003 in the United States, but
as February 1, 2003 in European countries.
Another reason to globalize your applications is to display currencies in the correct format. Think
of how your customers would feel when they find out the correct price for an item is 15,000
American dollars, not 15,000 Mexican pesos (about 1600 American dollars).
Your website can also accept customer feedback or some other form of text input. You might want
to support that feedback in multiple languages using a variety of character sets.