Cultural considerations
In software development, cultural formatting refers to the selection of culturally sensitive information such as a country's numeric format, monetary format, date and time formats, and calendar format. Such information varies from one region to another because of which the software application cannot mandate any cultural formats.
The following are the cultural considerations for globalization:
- Date and time formatting
- Currency and number formatting
- Name and address formatting
The Transaction Server run time infrastructure and tools framework provide an extensible and customizable set of globalized user interface (UI) functions. This allows programmers to implement a full-featured UI with a culturally sensitive look and feel.
- Date and time formatting
- Currency and number formatting
The display of monetary amounts varies from one country to another. Monetary values are usually accompanied by a currency symbol, which can exist in either the local currency symbols (for example,. $, , R$), or ISO 4217 international currency codes (for example, USD, EUR, BRL). Currency symbols may be placed before, within, or after the radix character of the monetary amount, and there may or may not be a space between the symbol and the amount. Although, most countries use the comma or period as the decimal separator in currency, some countries, such as Japan, do not have a currency decimal separator.- Name and address formatting
Globalizing Web-based software applications mandate support for country-specific name and address formats. Different countries and shipping regions have different address and name formats. This implies the need for different input fields during registration and also a different order when the address is displayed.
Related tasks
Adding a currency to WebSphere Commerce
Address and name formatting in the tools
Creating a globalized store
Creating a new display format
Creating and using resource bundles in the tools framework
Currency and number formatting
Date and time formatting
Setting the dir attribute for bidi specifications
Encoding for e-mail transmission
Name and address formatting
Use resource bundles in store pages
Creating a language selection drop-down list
Formatting addresses and names in the tools
Related reference
Globalization tips