Language barrier...

Question

I originally posted a similar message under the "compiling" forum, but after some thought I decided it fit better here since the issue wasn't necessarily specific to compilation (though it does affect it). I'm not trying to spam the forums, really, I'm not. :)
The problem is with the Java SDK's localization. I speak English, however, I am learning Japanese. But you can't type Japanese characters in Windows XP in many programs unless you set your system's locale (or language or whatever you want to call it) to Japanese. So I did exactly that, figuring that most of my programs don't "know" Japanese anyway and those that do could probably easily be adjusted so that they always use English (I had to make such an adjustment for Sun ONE Studio, for instance, by modifying its config file). For the most part, I was right.
However, I try to compile some code and lo, javac is trying to talk to me in Japanese. I know I can just switch my locale back to U.S. English and try again, but I don't want to reboot my computer every time I want to compile code and be able to read the error messages. I've looked around this website and in the official documentation and found no way to force the Java tools to use U.S. English as the locale. Is there any way to ensure that the compiler and other Java tools always use English?

Answer 1

No, still no luck in getting the SDK talking to me in English. It seems bent on saying things like "anata wa baka desu". So I say "Kuso!" back to it. ;) In any case I haven't bothered with it in the past few days since, due to some stuff happening, I haven't been in the mood to code. If I get desperate to compile something I can just change my language back to U.S. English, though, or maybe try using the Jikes compiler to compile (though that won't replace other SDK tools).
As for the Sun ONE Studio problem...
The file you want to modify is ide.cfg in the bin folder. It probably doesn't already have a locale flag there, so it uses the default, which would be Japanese. So at the end, type in this after the last flag: "-locale en_US" (without quotes), or whatever locale you might want in place of en_US. Does that work?
- Kef