What libraries are there to write C# internationalized applications?
Typical functionalities that should be contained in the library:
- Validation of country specific data (e.g. VAT numbers, phone numbers, addresses,…)
- Validation of bank and financial coordinates (e.g. Credit Card numbers, IBAN,…)
- Language-specific functionalities (e.g. numbers to words to numbers, summarize,…)
- Language specific content filtering (e.g. swearword filtering…)
An example of such libraries in Perl would be the Internationalization/Locale section of CPAN.
What C# solutions are available?
Note: I am not looking for an introduction to the System.Globalization namespace 🙂
Note 2: Should I desume that there are no options available? Is someone interested in joining forces and create one?
Note 3: Edit to make the question appear on front page in hope of more answers. This isn't such a hard question, how is it possible that Stackers don't ever do i18n?
Best Answer
One project that is working towards a database of globalization, internationalization and localization knowledge is the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository, based on the old ICU project at IBM.
As it is a database of XML data it doesn't contain any .NET-specific code, but as a body of knowledge it is very good.
Only a smallish subset is in the .NET framework. Microsoft hasn't gone near any of the supplemental stuff, like postcode formats, number spelling (for check/cheque amounts), etc. Standard time zone names (from the Olson/tz distribution), etc. are also included, with mappings to the Windows-specific names. Some of the hierarchical locale-specific behaviours also have better support.