While Java uses Unicode as its internal character set most operating systems, editors, and other tools still use regional code pages to represent text.
The Java compiler automatically assumes that your resource files are written in the default code page of your operating system as defined in the system property "file.encoding".
So, if you're using the U.S. English version of Windows NT, the compiler will probably assume your character set is ISO 8859-1.
If you need to compile a Cyrillic or Greek language bundle, you would get misleading results.
Use the -encoding option at compile time to specify the character set of the source file and use the appropriate converter to direct the compiler to accurately convert the source into Unicode.
Which bundle to use?
There are plenty of reasons why you might want to subclass the java.util.ResourceBundle rather than use the ListResourceBundle, PropertyResourceBundle.
Maybe you'd like to read all text from a database or want to create bundle classes that specialize in types of data access for performance reasons.
It's up to you, and if you find a reason why the available bundles don't work for you, you can modify and extend their behavior and performance.
Conclusion
Resource bundles are a quick and simple way to isolate translatable text or localizable objects from the core source code especially with many of the new IDEs including resource-bundle creation and management tools.
Sameer Tyagi is a Software Engineer with several years of programming experience in iNet application development and has conducted multiple training workshops in Java. Besides holding an Engineering degree in Electronics he is a Sun Certified Java 1.1 Programmer.
Email: sameertyagi@usa.net
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