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comparison doc/index.txt @ 2:20896f1e91c6 trunk
Forgot to check in the doc directory.
| author | cmlenz |
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| date | Wed, 30 May 2007 07:37:26 +0000 |
| parents | |
| children | fc8b5515af7c |
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| 1:7870274479f5 | 2:20896f1e91c6 |
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| 1 .. -*- mode: rst; encoding: utf-8 -*- | |
| 2 | |
| 3 ===== | |
| 4 Babel | |
| 5 ===== | |
| 6 | |
| 7 | |
| 8 --------------------------------------------------- | |
| 9 Simple Internationalization for Python Applications | |
| 10 --------------------------------------------------- | |
| 11 | |
| 12 Babel is an integrated collection of utilities that assist in | |
| 13 internationalizing and localizing Python applications, with an | |
| 14 emphasis on web-based applications. | |
| 15 | |
| 16 * `Working with Message Catalogs <catalogs.html>`_ | |
| 17 * `Locale Display Names <display.html>`_ | |
| 18 * `Number and Date Formatting <formatting.html>`_ | |
| 19 * `Command-Line Interface <cmdline.html>`_ | |
| 20 * `Distutils/Setuptools Integration <setup.html>`_ | |
| 21 * `Generated API Documentation <api/index.html>`_ | |
| 22 | |
| 23 Introduction | |
| 24 ------------ | |
| 25 | |
| 26 The functionality Babel provides for internationalization (I18n) and | |
| 27 localization (L10N) can be separated into two different aspects: | |
| 28 | |
| 29 * tools to build and work with ``gettext`` message catalogs, and | |
| 30 * a Python interface to the CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository), providing | |
| 31 access to various locale display names, localized number and date | |
| 32 formatting, etc. | |
| 33 | |
| 34 While the Python standard library includes a | |
| 35 `gettext <http://docs.python.org/lib/module-gettext.html>`_ module that enables | |
| 36 applications to use message catalogs, it requires developers to build these | |
| 37 catalogs using GNU tools such as ``xgettext``, ``msgmerge``, and ``msgfmt``. | |
| 38 And while ``xgettext`` does have support for extracting messages from Python | |
| 39 files, it does not know how to deal with other kinds of files commonly found | |
| 40 in Python web-applications, such as templates, nor does it provide an easy | |
| 41 extensibility mechanism to add such support. | |
| 42 | |
| 43 Babel addresses this by providing a framework where various extraction methods | |
| 44 can be plugged in to a larger message extraction framework, and also removes | |
| 45 the dependency on the GNU ``gettext`` tools for common tasks, as these aren't | |
| 46 necessarily available on all platforms. See `Working with Message Catalogs`_ | |
| 47 for details on this aspect of Babel. | |
| 48 | |
| 49 Furthermore, while the Python standard library does include support for basic | |
| 50 localization with respect to the formatting of numbers and dates (the | |
| 51 `locale <http://docs.python.org/lib/module-locale.html>`_ module, among others), | |
| 52 this support is based on the assumption that there will be only one specific | |
| 53 locale used per process (at least simultaneously.) Also, it doesn't provide | |
| 54 access to other kinds of locale data, such as the localized names of countries, | |
| 55 languages, or time zones, with are frequently needed in web-based applications. | |
| 56 | |
| 57 For these requirements, Babel includes data extracted from the `Common Locale | |
| 58 Data Repository (CLDR) <http://unicode.org/cldr/>`_, and provides a number of | |
| 59 convenient methods for accessing and using this data. See `Locale Display | |
| 60 Names`_ and `Number and Date Formatting`_ for more information on this aspect | |
| 61 of Babel. | |
| 62 |