How can I use an unsupported Locale (eg. ar-US) in JAVA 11 when I output a number via String.format()?
In Java 8 this worked just fine (try jdoodle, select JDK 1.8.0_66):
Locale locale = Locale.forLanguageTag("ar-US");
System.out.println(String.format(locale, "Output: %d", 120));
// Output: 120
Since Java 11 the output is in Eastern Arabic numerals (try jdoodle, use default JDK 11.0.4):
Locale locale = Locale.forLanguageTag("ar-US");
System.out.println(String.format(locale, "Output: %d", 120));
// Output: ١٢٠
It seems, this problem comes from the switch in the Locale Data Providers form JRE to CLDR (source: Localization Changes in Java 9 by #mcarth). Here is a list of supported locales: JDK 11 Supported Locales
UPDATE
I updated the questions example to ar-US, as my example before didn't make sense. The idea is to have a format which makes sense in that given country. In the example it would be the United States (US).
The behavior conforms to the CLDR being treated as the preferred Locale. To confirm this, the same snippet in Java-8 could be executed with
-Djava.locale.providers=CLDR
If you step back to look at the JEP 252: Use CLDR Locale Data by Default, the details follow :
The default lookup order will be CLDR, COMPAT, SPI, where COMPAT
designates the JRE's locale data in JDK 9. If a particular provider
cannot offer the requested locale data, the search will proceed to the
next provider in order.
So, in short if you really don't want the default behaviour to be that of Java-11, you can change the order of lookup with the VM argument
-Djava.locale.providers=COMPAT,CLDR,SPI
What might help further is understanding more about picking the right language using CLDR!
I'm sure I'm missing some nuance, but the problem is with your tag, so fix that. Specifically:
ar-EN makes no sense. That's short for:
language = arabic
country = ?? nobody knows.
EN is not a country. en is certainly a language code (for english), but the second part in a language tag is for country, and EN is not a country. (for context, there is en-GB for british english and en-US for american english).
Thus, this is as good as ar (as in, language = arabic, not tied to any particular country). Even if you did tie it to some country, that is mostly immaterial here; that would affect things like 'what is the first day of the week' ,'which currency symbol is to be presumed' and 'should temperatures be stated in Kelvin or Fahrenheit' perhaps. It has no bearing on how to show digits, because that's all based on language.
And language is arabic, thus, ١٢٠ is what you get when you try ar as a language tag when printing the number 120. The problem is that you expect this to return "120" which is a bizarre wish1, combined with the fact that java, unfortunately, shipped with a bug for a long long time that made it act in this bizarre fashion, thinking that rendering the number 120 in arabic is best done with "120", which is wrong.
So, with that context, in order of preference:
Best solution
Find out why your system ends up with ar-EN and nevertheless expects '120', and fix this. Also fix ar-EN in general; EN is not a country.
More generally, 'unsupported locale' isn't really a thing. the ar part is supported, and it's the only relevant part of the tag for rendering digits.
Alternatives
The most likely best answer if the above is not possible is to explicitly work around it. Detect the tag yourself, and write code that will just respond with the result of formatting this number using Locale.ENGLISH instead, guaranteeing that you get Output: 120. The rest seems considerably worse: You could try to write a localization provider which is a ton of work, or you can try to tell java to use the JRE version of the provider, but that one is obsoleted and will not be updated, so you're kicking the can down the road and setting yourself up for a maintenance burden later.
1.) Given that the JRE variant actually printed 120, and you're also indicating you want this, I get that nagging feeling I'm missing some political or historical info and the expectation that ar-EN results in rendering the number 120 as "120" is not so crazy. I'd love to hear that story if you care to provide it!
Do we have any java libraries to convert 3 letter language code to its corresponding language with localization support?
Like,
ENG -> English
PS: I guess its a bad question. But, google was of not a good help. Hence, turning to you all. Probably, my search term was not accurate.
Use Locale's getDisplayLanguage() method:
Locale eng = Locale.forLanguageTag("ENG"); // Make a locale from language code
System.out.println(eng.getDisplayLanguage()); // Obtain language display name
Demo.
I do not know about a Java library but this might help.
https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php
It has the data you are looking for. You might have to scrape it off the page and put it into your Java code.
I have a sample data of employees.
Brad Senior
<Fname>Brad Junior</Fname>
CHICAGO, March 6 1990 - He is a great Java Developer.
He has worked in XYZ company.
Data is in the format:
Person's name
<Fname> xxx </Fname> // Optional
Current Location, DOB - Description about his work.
I am able to parse it using BufferedReader and by using so many conditions.
Is there a better way to pares this content (e.g. Regex) and store it in a Employee object?
I cannot use external libraries.
Thanks.
You could use a parser generator as Cup.
It's really useful when the format becomes more complex. It also makes maintenance of the parser easier if the file format is extended.
Better is an opinion so your question is innately unanswerable. As Tobías stated parsers are arguable and your options are vast. I recommend the industry standard ANTLR in opposition to Cup due to the fact that it has absolutely no license information anywhere I could find.
I'm trying to convert numbers into a localized equivalent string (for an android app).
For example I would like to convert 25 into twenty five if the locale is US.
If the locale is FR I would like 237 to be converted into deux cent trente sept.
I searched a lot in the Android documentation without finding anything. ( Locale, TextUtils, ... )
I also looked around into other library such as Apache Commons LocaleUtils, without success.
I'm wondering if such a library even exists.
Any ideas ?
I think you are mixing up localization with translation here. Locales in Java are typically used for formatting.
You could have a look at google-api-translate-java.
I'm using locale.getDisplayLanguage(otherLocale) to get display several languages names in one locale.
If i'm using the following:
Locale loc = new Locale("he","IL");
Locale loc2 = new Locale("fr","FR");
System.out.println(loc2.getDisplayLanguage(loc));
It doesn't print the french language name in Hebrew.
Other locales that doesnt work are Arabic, finnish and some more.
do you have any idea? is java missing some locales translations?
Thanks,
Tal.
"is java missing some locales
translations?"
It would seem so. In fact, I think I spotted a posting on the Sun forums site that said the same.
However, I couldn't see a current Bug in the Sun Java Bug database. Why don't you create one?