Choosing Names for Message Catalogs

Internationalization Guide 2-3
Note: This directory path may vary, depending on where you chose to install
WebLogic Server.
Catalogs that provide different localizations of the base catalogs are defined in msgcat
subdirectories named for the locale (for example, msgcat\de for Germany). You
might have a top-level catalog named mycat.xml, and a German translation of it
called ..\de\mycat.xml. Typically the top-level catalog is English, but English is
not required for any catalogs except the installed WebLogic Server catalogs.
Locale designations (for example, de) also have a hierarchy as defined in the
java.util.Locale documentation. A locale can include a language, country, and
variant. Language is the most common locale designation. Language can be extended
with a country code. For instance, en\US, indicates American English. The name of
the associated catalog is ..\en\US\mycat.xml. Variants are vendor or
browser-specific and are used to introduce minor differences (for example, collation
sequences) between two or more locales defined by either language or country.
Choosing Names for Message Catalogs
Because the name of a message catalog file (without the .xml extension) is used to
generate runtime class and property names, you should choose the name carefully.
Follow these guidelines for naming message catalogs:
Do not choose a message catalog name that conflicts with any names of existing
classes in the target package.
The message catalog name should only contain characters that are allowed in
class names.
Follow class naming standards.
For example, the resulting class names for a catalog named Xyz.xml are
XyzLogLocalizer and XyzLogger.
The following considerations also apply to message catalog files:
Message IDs are generally six-character strings with leading zeros. Some
interfaces also support integer representations.