Servlet – Internationalization with Examples

Last Updated : 25 Mar, 2022

By default, web pages are available in the English language. It can be provided in the user choice of languages by means of the “Internationalization” concept in Java technology. Internationalization (i18n) helps the users to view the pages according to their nationality or else visited location. Requester’s locale can be retrieved by a servlet depending on their nationality and it will return the Locale object.

java.util.Locale request.getLocale()

There are different methods available to detect the locale

S.N	Method	Description
1	getCountry()	It helps to return “country/region” code in UPPER CASE for the locale in ISO 3166 2-letter format.
2	getDisplayCountry()	It helps to return a “NAME” for the locale’s country and it is appropriate for display to the user.
3	getLanguage()	It helps to return the “LANGUAGE CODE” in lower case for the locale in ISO 639 format.
4	getDisplayLanguage()	It helps to return a “NAME FOR LOCALE’s LANGUAGE” and it is appropriate for display to the user.
5.	getISO3Country()	It helps to return a three-letter abbreviation for the locale’s country.
6	getISO3Language()	It helps to return a three-letter abbreviation for the locale’s language.

Examples

Let us see different examples to display a language and associated country for a request

Example 1:

Java

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.Locale;
 
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
 
// Servlet implementation class SearchServlet
@WebServlet("/getCurrentLocationInformation")
public class GetLocationServlet extends HttpServlet {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
  
    public GetLocationServlet() {
        super();
    }
 
    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) 
            throws ServletException, IOException {
 
          // Get the  Locale information 
          // by using java.util.Locale
          Locale locale = request.getLocale();
           
          // language 
          String localeLanguage = locale.getLanguage();
           
          // country
          String localeCountry = locale.getCountry();
 
          // Print the  response content type 
          // below by using PrintWriter object
          response.setContentType("text/html");
          PrintWriter printWriter = response.getWriter();
 
          String title = "Locale detection";
          String docType =
             "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
           
          printWriter.println(docType +
             "<html>\n" +
                "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
                "<body bgcolor = \"#145A32\">\n" +
                   "<h1 align = \"Left\"> " + "<font color=\"white\">"  + "Language : " + localeLanguage + "</font>" + "</h1>\n" +
                   "<h2 align = \"Left\">" + "<font color=\"white\">" + "Country    : " + localeCountry + "</font>" + "</h2>\n" +
             "</body>" +
             "</html>"
          );   
        
       }
    }

By executing the above code, we can get the output as follows

Output:

Default language setting

If we want to set the language as the different one, via language setting it can be done.

// In order to set spanish language code.
response.setHeader("Content-Language", "es");
// Similarly we can set different language codes in this way
// http://www.mathguide.de/info/tools/languagecode.html provides various language code

Example 2:

Java

protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) 
            throws ServletException, IOException {
 
          // Print the  response content type below
          // by using PrintWriter object
          response.setContentType("text/html");
          PrintWriter printWriter = response.getWriter();    
          
          // Set spanish language code. In this place, we need 
          // to provide the required language setting
          response.setHeader("Content-Language", "es");
          String title = "En Español";
          String docType =
          "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
           
          // As it is spanish, the messages
          // also given in spanish
          printWriter.println(docType +
             "<html>\n" +
                "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
                "<body bgcolor = \"#145A32\">\n" +
                   "<h1>" + "<font color=\"white\">" + "En Español:" + "</font>" + "</h1>\n" +
                   "<h1>" + "<font color=\"white\">" + "Bienvenido a GeeksForGeeks!" + "</font>" + "</h1>\n" +
                "</body>"+
             "</html>");
       }

Output:

setting to spanish language

Example 3:

Specific to locale, by using java.text.DateFormat class and getDateTimeInstance() method, we can format date and time

Java

// import java.text.DateFormat as it is getting used
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) 
            throws ServletException, IOException {        
          // Set response content type
          response.setContentType("text/html");
          PrintWriter printWriter = response.getWriter();
           
          // Get the client's Locale by using request.getLocale()
          Locale locale = request.getLocale( );
          String date = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.FULL, 
             DateFormat.SHORT, locale).format(new Date( ));
          String title = "Displaying Locale Specific Dates";
          String docType =
             "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
          
          printWriter.println(docType +
             "<html>\n" +
                "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
                "<body bgcolor = \"#145A32\">\n" +
                   "<h1 align = \"Left\">" + "<font color=\"white\">"  + "Locale specific date : " + date + "</font>" + "</h1>\n" +
                "</body>" + 
             "</html>"
          );
       }

Output:

Displaying locale date

Example 4:

Specific to locale, by using java.txt.NumberFormat class and getCurrencyInstance() method, we can format currency

Java

// import java.text.NumberFormat; has to be imported
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) 
            throws ServletException, IOException {        
          // Set response content type
          response.setContentType("text/html");
          PrintWriter printWriter = response.getWriter();   
           
          // Get the current Locale information
          Locale currentLocale = request.getLocale( );
          NumberFormat numberFormat = NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(currentLocale);
          String formattedCurrency = numberFormat.format(100000);
 
          String title = "Displaying Locale Specific Currency";
          String docType =
             "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
           
          printWriter.println(docType +
             "<html>\n" +
                "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
                "<body bgcolor = \"#145A32\">\n" +
                   "<h1 align = \"Left\">" + "<font color=\"white\">"  + "Currency : " +formattedCurrency + "</font>" +"</h1>\n" +
                "</body>"+
             "</html>"
          );
}

Output:

Output

Advantages of Internationalization

Foreign marketplaces capturing is easier.
Rendering a locale-neutral result
In the beginning, if it is implemented, the expansion of software across global markets is easier.

Conclusion

Any software that aims to be developed in the global market, has to be prepared in an international way only. In java, we can use the above-mentioned methodologies to achieve internationalization.

Suggest improvement

Servlet - Pagination with Example

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