Re: Japanese character need help

From: John O'Conner (john.oconner@sun.com)
Date: Fri Oct 17 1997 - 15:13:44 EDT


Heinz Baumann wrote:
>
> First, I think you have to get a Japanese (double byte) enabled
> version of Visual C++ and the Japanese (double byte) enabled
> Win32 SDK. The second at least is required in order for you

Actually, the VC++ 4.2 or 5.0 environments are perfectly capable of
producing Japanese localized and internationalized products. There is no
special double-byte enabled product (it is already enabled by default);
however, there is probably a Japanese localized product if you just want
to have the VC++ UI in Japanese. Also, you will need to run the product
on Windows 95 J or Windows NT J if you want input method support (for
creating resource strings, menus, etc.). However, you can create
perfectly double-byte aware applications with just the U.S. English VC++
on English versions of '95 or NT.

> to get the API function to understand that you are dealing with
> double byte characters. If you use the English version of VC++
> and SDK, the API probaly things that the strings passed to it
> are in a single byte encoding and your mail header/contents is not
> processed correctly. (Maybe you can set the _MBCS flag and the
> English VC++ works as well. I don't know whether this works for
> the APIs.)

If you #define _MBCS or set it in the IDE, VC++ will link in double-byte
aware versions of all the run-time libraries (useful for many languages,
not just Japanese). The Win32 APIs understand Japanese text perfectly
well if you run the application on a Japanese system. Yes, you can use
the English localized VC++; in fact, I use it every day to create
internationally enabled products, including those for Japan.

>
> I also don't know Java but I've heard that the the Java API should
> have the required language support included. Check Sun's Java
> site for more information on that.
>

Yes, the Java language, environment, and development tools support many
languages and locales.

However, the fact that you use Java or VC++ to do development is
probably not the important factor for this list. More importantly (for
this list) is that Unicode can accomodate your needs for a universal
character set and encoding . . . and it certainly covers Japanese.
Unicode is supported in varying degrees on many OS platforms and
environments, including Windows 95, Windows NT, and Java.

-- 
John O'Conner
JDK Internationalization Engineer
Sun Microsystems, JavaSoft Division
john.oconner@sun.com



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