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comparison doc/intro.txt @ 115:79c875493b91 trunk
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| author | cmlenz |
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| date | Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:33:31 +0000 |
| parents | |
| children | 98dcabc99308 |
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| 1 .. -*- mode: rst; encoding: utf-8 -*- | |
| 2 | |
| 3 ============ | |
| 4 Introduction | |
| 5 ============ | |
| 6 | |
| 7 The functionality Babel provides for internationalization (I18n) and | |
| 8 localization (L10N) can be separated into two different aspects: | |
| 9 | |
| 10 * tools to build and work with ``gettext`` message catalogs, and | |
| 11 * a Python interface to the CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository), providing | |
| 12 access to various locale display names, localized number and date | |
| 13 formatting, etc. | |
| 14 | |
| 15 .. contents:: Contents | |
| 16 :depth: 2 | |
| 17 .. sectnum:: | |
| 18 | |
| 19 | |
| 20 Message Catalogs | |
| 21 ================ | |
| 22 | |
| 23 While the Python standard library includes a | |
| 24 `gettext <http://docs.python.org/lib/module-gettext.html>`_ module that enables | |
| 25 applications to use message catalogs, it requires developers to build these | |
| 26 catalogs using GNU tools such as ``xgettext``, ``msgmerge``, and ``msgfmt``. | |
| 27 And while ``xgettext`` does have support for extracting messages from Python | |
| 28 files, it does not know how to deal with other kinds of files commonly found | |
| 29 in Python web-applications, such as templates, nor does it provide an easy | |
| 30 extensibility mechanism to add such support. | |
| 31 | |
| 32 Babel addresses this by providing a framework where various extraction methods | |
| 33 can be plugged in to a larger message extraction framework, and also removes | |
| 34 the dependency on the GNU ``gettext`` tools for common tasks, as these aren't | |
| 35 necessarily available on all platforms. See `Working with Message Catalogs`_ | |
| 36 for details on this aspect of Babel. | |
| 37 | |
| 38 .. _`Working with Message Catalogs`: catalogs.html | |
| 39 | |
| 40 | |
| 41 Locale Data | |
| 42 =========== | |
| 43 | |
| 44 Furthermore, while the Python standard library does include support for basic | |
| 45 localization with respect to the formatting of numbers and dates (the | |
| 46 `locale <http://docs.python.org/lib/module-locale.html>`_ module, among others), | |
| 47 this support is based on the assumption that there will be only one specific | |
| 48 locale used per process (at least simultaneously.) Also, it doesn't provide | |
| 49 access to other kinds of locale data, such as the localized names of countries, | |
| 50 languages, or time-zones, which are frequently needed in web-based applications. | |
| 51 | |
| 52 For these requirements, Babel includes data extracted from the `Common Locale | |
| 53 Data Repository (CLDR) <http://unicode.org/cldr/>`_, and provides a number of | |
| 54 convenient methods for accessing and using this data. See `Locale Display | |
| 55 Names`_ and `Number and Date Formatting`_ for more information on this aspect | |
| 56 of Babel. | |
| 57 | |
| 58 | |
| 59 .. _`Locale Display Names`: display.html | |
| 60 .. _`Number and Date Formatting`: formatting.html |