User-defined locales

uses the Java™ globalization API to manipulate international data.

The classes and methods in that API take a Java development kit locale or encoding as a parameter, but because the Informix® DB_LOCALE and CLIENT_LOCALE properties specify the locale and code set based on Informix names, these Informix names are mapped to the Java development kit names. These mappings are kept in internal tables, which are updated periodically.

For example, the Informix and Java development kit names for the ASCII code set are 8859-1 and 8859_1, respectively. maps 8859-1 to 8859_1 in its internal tables and uses the appropriate name in the Java development kit classes and methods.