Package javax.microedition.global

Contains classes that implement the JSR-238, "Mobile Internationalization API".

See:
Description

Class Summary

Formatter	Creates locale-specific renditions of data items.
ResourceManager	Resource manager for applications.
StringComparator	Compares two strings using locale-specific rules.

Exception Summary

ResourceException	Thrown when a resource manager operation fails.
UnsupportedLocaleException	Thrown when an operation is attempted that is not supported for the specified locale.

Package javax.microedition.global Description

Contains classes that implement the JSR-238, "Mobile Internationalization API".

Package Specification

The classes in this package are used by applications to manage application and device resources, format data items in a locale-specific way, and perform locale-specific comparisons of strings.

Since most of the classes in this package are immutable after construction, the implementation MAY provide thread safety by synchronization of non-atomic operations. However, multithreaded applications SHOULD provide explicit synchronization if several threads are using the same object from any class in this API.

Note that the ResourceManager class is explicitly not final, as a device resource manager is best implemented by subclassing ResourceManager.

Formatting

The Formatter class is instantiated to produce locale-specific renditions of data items. Typically only one formatter is used in an application run, but the application can create other instances for different locales, provided they are supported by the implementation.

An instance of Formatter is not needed to format messages with replaceable parameters.

Resource retrieval

Resources are retrieved using an instance of the ResourceManager class.

This API distinguishes between two types of resources: application resources and device resources. The former are defined by the application programmer and shipped with the application, whereas the latter are defined by the device manufacturer.

Application resources can be String objects or byte arrays, whereas device resources can be arbitrary Java objects. All resources can be retrieved with the getResource method, but getString and getData are provided for convenience.

Resources are grouped by base names, which can be arbitrary strings. For better compatibility across systems the base names SHOULD preferably contain only US-ASCII characters, and characters typically reserved in file names SHOULD be avoided. In the MIDP environment a base name could be the name of some MIDlet in the currently running MIDlet suite, as indicated by the MIDlet-n attribute (see the MIDP 2.0 specification). If an application descriptor is not present, the value of the MIDlet-Name attribute can be used as the base name. However, base names are not tied to the application suite. A programmer-assigned name can be used to address resources which are common to all MIDlets in the suite.

If the base name is empty, it indicates that only device-specific resources are to be retrieved using the manager in question.

Sorting text strings

Sorting text strings (also known as collation) is a locale-specific operation facilitated by the StringComparator class. This class does not perform the sorting, but provides a method to compare two strings correctly for a given locale. This result can be utilized in any standard sorting algorithm used by the application.