Formatting Data

When you internationalize an application, consider how to handle the format of locale-specific data. The format in which numeric, monetary, and date and time data appears to the end user is locale specific. The GLS locale file defines locale-specific formats for each of these types of data, as the following table shows.

The IBM Informix GLS library provides functions that allow you to perform the following tasks on locale-specific data:

• Conversion changes a string that contains locale-specific format to the internal representation of its value

  You usually perform conversion on a locale-specific string to prepare it for storage in a program variable or a database column.

• Formatting changes the internal representation of a value to locale-specific string.

  You usually perform formatting of a locale-specific string to prepare the internal representation of a value for display to the end user.