What Is a Language Catalog?

A language catalog is a set of text strings in a particular language, created as key name/value pairs. Applications can use these catalogs to fill in the names of menu items, buttons, and other elements of a user interface, for example. The use of different language catalogs, then, can support an application's internationalization: for example, letting a user decide what language to use for installing and running the application.

There are two main advantages of using a language catalog in a separate file, rather than having these strings embedded in the application:

The strings do not consume memory until the application loads them

You can edit the catalog to add new languages and new strings without directly involving the application

In addition, because the language catalogs are in XML format, you can easily read and edit the files in any text editor.

Implementing language catalog functionality requires two parts:

The creation of a language catalog (.cat) file, which contains the name/value pairs in the desired languages. See Creating a Language Catalog File for information on requirements for a language catalog file's structure.

The creation of an IDLffLangCat object, which provides access and use of the keys in the catalog file. See Using the IDLffLangCat Class for information on creating and using a language catalog object.