Do xalan and xpath packages follow standard I18N?

[Tom Amiro <To...@Sun.COM>]

Hi,

Bugid: 4452624 was filed at Sun against the version of Xalan that is built into 
JDK1.4 (Merlin) saying the xalan and xpath packages don't follow standard 
internationalization. I'd like to get some feedback on whether this 
is a real problem in Xalan that needs to be resolved. 

[The last comment on this bug from norbert.lindenberg@sun.com 2001-11-01]

According to costin.manolache@sun.com (7/25/01), Scott Boag, the main developer on 
xalan, has agreed to change to properties files in a future version (after 1.4).


[Here's the original description.]
The packages org/apache/xalan/res/ and
org/apache/xpath/res/ use a very non-standard approach to
internationalization. They implement their own resource bundle lookup
and have localizable content embedded in a lot of code, making it very
hard for localizers to figure out how to go about translating the stuff.

Also, the makefiles use NEW_RESOURCE_BUNDLES_PROPERTIES incorrectly.
This variable is intended to identify localizable property resource
bundles. As far as I can tell, none of the files listed is intended to
be localized. On the other hand, the files that should be localized are
not identified.

Please update these packages to use standard resource bundles and to
follow the "Preparing J2SDK Components for Localization" guidelines as
given at http://javaweb.eng/jdk/eng/prepLocalization.html.

[Here's Costin's evaluation] 
Xalan is an Apache-developed product. This "style" for messages has been around
for at least 2 years, and is used extensively in most xml.apache.org sources. 
Changing it ( on Apache ) is very unlikely - it is a very big change and it'll
affect other's people translations. The only solution would be to fork it and
change our local copy - but that would make it very hard/impossible to integrate 
future versions of xalan. Note that the same style is used in apache-xerces and 
other xml apache projects.

The workaround is to translate the ErrorResources.java files. It would be possible to 
"hack" it so it redirects to a properties file, but again I don't think it would be 
possible to put it back on apache.ErrorResource extends ListResourceBundle.

Regarding the Makefile - this will be fixed in the next integration ( by replacing  NEW_RESOURCE_BUNDLES_PROPERTIES
with ..._JAVA ), but changing the
xalan message handling - I don't think it can be fixed ( at least in this version )

-- 
 Tom Amiro -- SQA Engineer
 Sun XML Technology Development
 voice: 781-442-0589 Fax: 781-442-1437
 eMail: tom.amiro@.sun.com