HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
NLS Adds Asian Languages
by Ali Shehk and Jesse Chin, Commercial Systems Division
Native Language Support (NLS) provides the HP 3000 with the features
necessary to produce localized application programs for end users without
reprogramming for each country or language.
Previous releases of NLS included the support of languages from Western
European countries, the Middle East region and Katakana for Japan. This
new release of NLS (A.03.00) includes support of Japanese, Korean,
Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
LANGUAGE-DEPENDENT INFORMATION
For each language supported by NLS, a number of characteristics are known
and defined. These characteristics are lexical conventions (e.g.
collating sequence and upshifting rules), country or local custom
dependent formats (e.g. currency symbols, date and time formats), and
data processing conversion tables (e.g. ASCII-to-EBCDIC and
EBCDIC-to-ASCII conversion tables).
The language-dependent information has been expanded in this release to
include the following data:
New Language-Dependent Information
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| | |
| LANGUAGE DATA ORDERING | Indicates whether the data ordering of the |
| | language is in keyboard, left-to-right |
| | screen, or right-to-left screen mode. |
| | |
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| | |
| CHARACTER SIZE | Indicates whether the language is using |
| | 8-bit characters or 16-bit characters. |
| | |
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| | |
| DATE TRUNCATION | Indicates whether the leading zero or blank |
| | in the date format will be truncated or |
| | not. |
| | |
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ASIAN CHARACTER COLLATION
In Asian character collation, the character set is divided into several
ranges. Each range has a collating sequence priority number. This
number is used to signify the collating order of the range with respect
to the rest of the ranges. If two characters in different ranges are
collated, the character in the range with lowest priority number will
collate first.
Within each range the collation is based on the binary value of the
characters. If two characters within the same range are collated, the
one with the lowest binary value will collate first.
NEW AND MODIFIED NLS INTRINSICS
The NLS intrinsics have been enhanced to support 16-bit characters. In
addition, three new intrinsics have been designed to facilitate the
processing of 16-bit data by application programs. The following text
briefly describes the functional changes for each intrinsic:
New and Modified NLS Intrinsics
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| | |
| NLINFO (Modified) | Item #34 returns the data ordering of the language. |
| | Item #35 returns the size of a character: one or |
| | two bytes. Item #36 returns whether truncation of |
| | dates is required. |
| | |
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| | |
| NLSCANMOVE (Modified) | Flags for One-Byte ONLY mode or Two-Byte ONLY mode |
| | were added to the intrinsic. Note: Asian |
| | characters are assumed to be of type alphabetic |
| | (lower or upper). |
| | |
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| | |
| NLCOLLATE (Modified) | New collation class was designed to accommodate the |
| | Asian requirements for collation. NLCOLLATE was |
| | modified to include the new collation class. |
| | |
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| | |
| NLKEYCOMPARE (Modified) | Searches for generic keys in KSAM files. The |
| | search is done according to the new collation for |
| | Asian languages. |
| | |
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| | |
| Date Formatting Intrinsics | These intrinsics were modified to accept Asian |
| | character in the date template without confusing |
| | the second byte of the Asian character as one byte. |
| | |
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| | |
| NLJUDGE (New) | Reads a string of characters and determines if a |
| | character is a one byte (0) character, first byte |
| | of an Asian character (1), second byte of an Asian |
| | character (2), or an error byte (3). |
| | |
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| | |
| NLFINDSTR (New) | Finds a substring in another string. |
| | |
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| | |
| NLSUBSTR (new) | Extract a substring from another string specifying |
| | the treatment of the case were the move could split |
| | an Asian character. |
| | |
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NEW LANGUAGES AND CHARACTER SETS
Four new languages are introduced in this release of NLS. These languages
and their associated character sets are described in the following table:
Language Table
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| | | |
| Language | LANGID | Character Set / ID |
| | | |
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| | | |
| SIMPLIFIED CHINESE | 201 | PRC15 / 51 |
| | | |
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| | | |
| TRADITIONAL CHINESE | 211 | ROC15 / 56 |
| | | |
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| | | |
| JAPANESE | 221 | JAPAN15 / 61 |
| | | |
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| | | |
| KOREAN | 231 | KOREA15 / 66 |
| | | |
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LANGINST AND NLUTIL
Both LANGINST.PUB.SYS and NLUTIL.PUB.SYS has been modified to handle
16-bit characters. In addition, the catalog file NLSCAT.PUB.SYS, which
is used by both LANGINST and NLUTIL, has been enhanced to include several
new messages.
MESSAGE CATALOG CHANGES
The command $LANG n has been introduced in GENCAT (A.03.00) for the
support of two-byte languages and it is required only for users of such
languages. Users of 8-bit languages are not required to use it.
The user can type 16-bit messages, English messages, or a mixture of
English and 16-bit messages. For example:
$SET 1
$LANG 201
1 This is message in Simplified Chinese.
2 This is a message in English.
3 This is a message in Simplified Chinese and in &
English
LANGUAGE INSTALLATION
In order to install the new languages, the System Manager must run
LANGINST.PUB.SYS. Once the languages have been added, the System Manager
must bring the system down and then up with a WARM or COOLSTART.
The System manager can check that the languages have been installed by
running NLUTIL.PUB.SYS. Additional information can be found in the Native
Language, Message Catalogs, and User Logging Binder Kit (P/N
32650-60012).