The IBM Informix GLS Library

The IBM Informix GLS library is an application programming interface (API) through which developers of user-defined routines and of DataBlade modules can create internationalized applications.

Character Processing with IBM Informix GLS

The macros and functions of IBM Informix GLS provide access within a DataBlade API module to GLS locales for culture-specific information. This library contains functions that provide the following capabilities:

• Process single-byte and multibyte characters
• Format date, time, and numeric data to locale-specific formats

Compatibility of Wide-Character Data Types

Wide character data types are an alternative form for the processing of multibyte characters. A wide-character form of a code set involves the normalization of the size of each multibyte character so that each character is the same size. A legacy DataBlade API module might use any of the following data types to hold wide characters.

The IBM Informix GLS library provides the gl_wchar_t data type for support of wide characters. IBM Informix GLS also provides its own set of wide-character functions that operate on gl_wchar_t. Use of the IBM Informix GLS wide-character functions removes platform dependency from your application and provides access within your DataBlade API module to IBM Informix GLS locales.

The IBM Informix GLS library does not provide any functions for conversion between gl_wchar_t and mi_wchar or gl_wchar_t an wchar_t. If a DataBlade API module continues to use either mi_wchar or wchar_t and also needs to use the IBM Informix GLS wide-character processing, you must write code to perform any necessary conversions.