If you haven't done much internationalization, then you may not have heard the mantra: NEVER CONCATENATE STRINGS! Why is this a problem? Well, the order of parts of a sentence is different in different languages; this difference can easily lead you into trouble. For example, if you use the traditional string concatenation mechanism offered by the language, the localization engineer is limited to modifying only the string, and not the position of, say the date field. If the language requires verbs to be at the end of the sentence, the localization engineer is stuck.

You can replace concatenation by use of MessageFormats, which allow the localization engineer to position the variable information appropriately:

MessageFormat Instead of Concatenation

Java Note

The reason for using the array of objects for the parameter is to allow multiple arguments. There will probably be convenience methods in the future to make this a bit smoother. This new pattern string can then be localized, allowing rearrangement of the position of the argument {0}. In Java, if you want to, you could combine this into a single statement, using the static MessageFormat.format() p

Message formats can also be used to customize the precise format of dates, times, numbers, or currencies. If you only specify the position of the argument, then a default for the current locale will be chosen. However, you (for English) or the localization engineer (for other languages) can also more precisely control the format if you desire. Adding additional keywords or patterns after the argument number, as in the following examples does this:

 Argument

new Date(1997,6,13);

 Pattern examples