Locales
Every machine has a locale. A locale is a set of preferences related to the user environment, including the input language, keyboard layout, how data is sorted, and the format for currency and dates. Informatica uses locale settings on each machine.
You can set the following locale settings on Windows:
- •System locale. Determines the language, code pages, and associated bitmap font files that are used as defaults for the system.
- •User locale. Determines the default formats to display date, time, currency, and number formats.
- •Input locale. Describes the input method, such as the keyboard, of the system language.
For more information about configuring the locale settings on Windows, consult the Windows documentation.
System Locale
The system locale is also referred to as the system default locale. It determines which ANSI and OEM code pages, as well as bitmap font files, are used as defaults for the system. The system locale contains the language setting, which determines the language in which text appears in the user interface, including in dialog boxes and error messages. A message catalog file defines the language in which messages display. By default, the machine uses the language specified for the system locale for all processes, unless you override the language for a specific process.
The system locale is already set on your system and you may not need to change settings to run Informatica. If you do need to configure the system locale, you configure the locale on a Windows machine in the Regional Options dialog box. On UNIX, you specify the locale in the LANG environment variable.
User Locale
The user locale displays date, time, currency, and number formats for each user. You can specify different user locales on a single machine. Create a user locale if you are working with data on a machine that is in a different language than the operating system. For example, you might be an English user working in Hong Kong on a Chinese operating system. You can set English as the user locale to use English standards in your work in Hong Kong. When you create a new user account, the machine uses a default user locale. You can change this default setting once the account is created.
Input Locale
An input locale specifies the keyboard layout of a particular language. You can set an input locale on a Windows machine to type characters of a specific language.
You can use the Windows Input Method Editor (IME) to enter multibyte characters from any language without having to run the version of Windows specific for that language. For example, if you are working on an English operating system and need to enter text in Chinese, you can use IME to set the input locale to Chinese without having to install the Chinese version of Windows. You might want to use an input method editor to enter multibyte characters into a PowerCenter repository that uses UTF-8.