A Java locale object represents the locale of the corresponding user in Java. The Java encoding used for the locale is required to properly convert Java strings to and from byte data. You must consider the Java encoding for the locale if you make the Java code aware of a user locale. There are two ways to make a Java method sensitive to the Java locale and encoding:
Using the default Java locale and default Java encoding for the method
Explicitly specifying the Java locale and Java encoding for the method
When developing a global application, it is recommended to take the second approach and explicitly specify the Java locale and Java encoding that correspond to the current user locale. You can specify the Java locale object that corresponds to the user locale, identified by user_locale, in the getDateTimeInstance method as in Example 9-3.
Example 9-3 Explicitly Specifying User Locale in Java
DateFormat df = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.FULL, DateFormat.FULL, user_locale); dateString = df.format(date); /* Format a date */