ColdFusion MX Coding Guidelines - Globalization

Release 3.2 (4/14/2005)

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Globalization

Make sure your code takes account of the Globalization Standards listed on the Web Team Internationalization page.

If your source file is UTF-8 (which it should be - DWMX lets you create UTF-8 source files!), then you should include a page processing directive near the top of each and every source file:

<cfprocessingdirective pageEncoding="utf-8" />

All generated HTML must specify a Content-Type, a Content-Language and a character set encoding (which should be UTF-8). See also Accessibility / Section 508 Guidelines.

This will be in the Application.cfm file along with setEncoding() calls for form and URL scope:

<!--- Set encoding to UTF-8. --->
<cfset setEncoding("URL", "UTF-8") />
<cfset setEncoding("Form", "UTF-8") />

<!--- Set the output encoding to UTF-8 --->
<cfcontent type="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

<!--- Set basic URL values into request scope --->
<cf_getrequestsettings />
<cfheader name="Content-Language" value="#request.language#" />

Any references to URL encoded data needs to use:

#URLEncodedFormat(myvar, "UTF-8")#

Note: the locale will be determined dynamically by code in Application.cfm from a combination of the URL (which will usually include a Macromedia 'region' code) and the query string (which may specify a loc parameter). The general outline of that logic, in pseudo-code would be:

if loc is present in query string then
    request.locale = loc value
else if region is present in the URL then
    request.locale = default locale for that region
else
    request.locale = "en_US"
endif

The language can be derived from the locale mechanically:

<cfset request.language = replace(request.locale,"_","-") />

A 'short locale' would also be needed for content queries - the first two letters of the specified or deduced locale:

<cfset request.loc2 = left(request.locale, 2) />

Here are some examples of the deduction we would do:

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