What is XPG4 Internationalization?

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│XPG4 is a set of definitions of APIs, command interfaces and          │
│programming languages which makes an application portable across      │
│multi-platform and multi-vendor open environment.                     │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

XPG4 is a part of CAE (Common Application Environment) which the building blocks in an open system defined by X/Open on 1992. X/Open (the X/Open Company Limited) is a UK company which is a consortium formed for creating open systems specifications.

XPG4, which is originally stands for X/Open Portability Guide Issue4, represents an evolving portfolio of API (Application Programming Interface)

XPG4 covers various areas of operating system from process control to archive format, but this document focuses on its Internationalization facility only.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│The XPG4 Internationalization programming model is an architecture for│
│Internationalization of applications running on OS/2 Warp.            │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Internationalization, which is often abbreviated by I18N, refers to the process of developing programs without prior knowledge of the following:

• Code page(**)

• Cultural convention

• Language

• Code conversion between code-sets
For example, the format of date depends on the culture, and user interface elements such as messages and panels (so-called PII) depend on the language. An internationalized program, however, does not need to know any date format or to contain any PII written in a specific language. In other words, an internationalized program is a culture-neutral object code.

Localization, which is often abbreviated by L10N, is a process of establishing information specific to each supported language, cultural convention and code page combination. L10N adds the language and culture specific information to the internationalized program.

At run time, an internationalized program loads appropriate L10N information dynamically depending on a run time environment (see What Is Locale?).

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