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San José, CA – September, 2004
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Markus [email protected]
Raghuram (Ram) [email protected]
IBM San José Globalization Center of CompetencyCopyright © 2003-2004 IBM Corporation
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Agenda
• What is software globalization?• Localizable content storage formats• Problems faced by translators• What is XLIFF?• XLIFF Benefits• Integration of XLIFF in localization process• ICU and XLIFF• Localization process demo • Q & A
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Globalization of a Software Product
• Localization (L10N): The process of modifying products or services to account for differences in distinct markets.
• Internationalization (I18N) : The process of ensuring at a technical/design level that a product can be easily localized.
• Globalization (G11N): The proper design and execution of systems, software, services, and procedures so that one instance of software, executing on a single server or end user machine, can process multilingual data, and present data culturally correctly in a multicultural environment such as the Internet.
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Localizable Content Storage Formats
• Plethora of formats– VC++ .rc and .mc files– Java resource bundles– ICU resource bundles– .NET resource files– POSIX Message Catalogs– GNU gettext-.. etc.Note: Refer to the conference proceedings for more information
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Problems for Translators
• Large number of proprietary formats – Very different capabilities
• Lack of tools which understand the different formats and interoperate
• Formats in programming languages
• Lack of a well defined process for managing the localization work flow
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
What is ICU?
• Internationalization libraries for C, C++, Java*– Open source – non-viral– Sponsored by IBM* Sun’s Java licenses an earlier ICU version; ICU4J updates it.
• Unicode standard compliant– full supplementary support
• Cross-platform; extensible and customizable• High performance and thread-safe
– Multiple locales in same thread – simultaneously
• http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
ICU Services• Unicode string handling, sets of Unicode characters,
and character properties• Character conversion (>200 conversion tables)• Language-sensitive collation (UCA) and text searching• Unicode regular expressions and text boundary
analysis• Locale-sensitive formatting and parsing (>200 locales)• Timezone and currency handling• Complex text layout• Script transliteration and flexible text-text
transformations• Resource bundles for storing localizable content
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
ICU ResourceBundle Features
• Comparable features for content storage except for meta data
• Support for some XLIFF meta data features• Key-Value pairs + Nested Structures• External text and binary files can be imported• Bundle fallback mechanism
– root bundle ‘fr’ bundle French ‘fr_CA’ bundle for French, Canada
• Alias mechanism for conserving space
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
What is XLIFF?
• XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF) is an emerging industry standard for exchanging content for localization.
• Defines XML vocabulary for expressing localizable data.
• Designed by localization industry experts to address the problems faced by translators.
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
XLIFF Benefits• XML-based
– Problems of encoding and character sets avoided– Rich internationalization features
• Superset of other formats– Lossless conversion to and from different formats– Binary objects (e.g. icons) can be imported or
represented inline • Not proprietary
– Tool and vendor neutral• Key-value pairs + Nested structures• Extensible
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
XLIFF Benefits (contd.)
• Translation can be turned off.• Meta data for communication between
developer and translator.• Validation through XML Schema or Data Type
Definition (DTD).• Support for Translation Memory, Machine
Translation (MT) and Computer Aided Translation.
• Meta data for administrative info and version management.
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
XLIFF Snippet
<trans-unit xml:space = "preserve" id = "root_fortunes_0" translate="yes">
<source xml:lang = "en">
A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
</source>
<target xml:lang="te">
ఒక ఐదు� యెళ్ళ� పిల్ల�వాడు� దీనిని అర్థం�� చేసు�కొగల్లడు�, ఐదు� యెళ్ళ�
పిల్ల�వాడిని తీసు�క� ర్థం�డి
</target>
</trans-unit>
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
How Applications Localize
Repository
Template
Tools that
understand multiple
formats
Product Developers
Translators
Localized files
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Using XLIFF
• XLIFF is used only for interchange of content with translators.
• XLIFF is used as the source format of localizable content .
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Transient XLIFF Files
Product Developers
Repository
Translators
Localized XLIFFFiles
Template
XL
IFF Filter
TemplateXLIFF
File
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Source XLIFF Files
Product Developers
Repository
Localized XLIFFFiles
Template
XL
IFF Filter in
build process
TemplateXLIFF
File Translators
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
XLIFF for Localization Engineers
Q. What does XLIFF do for me?
• Single format for quality control
• NO errors due to 3rd party tools: you control the converters
• NO data interchange errors
• Control what needs to be translated
• Communicate with translator
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Localization with XLIFF and ICU
Product Developers
Repository
Localized XLIFFFiles
Templatein ICU format
XL
IFF
2ICU
Converte
r and genrb Filters in
build process
TemplateXLIFF
File
Translators
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Lets Localize!
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/icuapps/ufortune
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Conclusion
• XLIFF is the best interchange format available
• ICU provides tools for using XLIFF in the localization process
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
References and Resources• International Components for Unicode (ICU) : http://
oss.software.ibm.com/icu/• XLIFF Specification:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xliff/documents/cs-xliff-core-1.1-20031031.htm
• XLIFF Overview: http://xml.coverpages.org/xliff.html• White Paper on XLIFF:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/group_public/download.php/3110/XLIFF-core-whitepaper_1.1-cs.pdf
• Domino Global Workbench Version 6: http://www6.software.ibm.com/devcon/devcon/docs/dwkbbet6.htm
• XLIFF at IBM:http://www.ibm.com/software/globalization/highlights/xliff.jsp
• XLIFF at Sun: http://www.sun.com/developers/gadc/technicalpublications/articles/xliff.html
San José, CA- – September, 200426th Internationalization & Unicode Conference
Localizing with XLIFF and ICU
Questions
Thank you for listening.
Are there any questions?