Problem with Localization

Question

Hi everyone,
I am localizing my english java-app to japanese using PropertyResourceBundle. I set all the strings to be localized in .properties file with their equavalent japanese text. But when I retrieved the text however, using res.getString( "english-text" ), the returning string is a sort-of-garbage. But if I use ResourceBundle (not the property) with an explicit string return such as return res.getString(""), the returned text is correct.
When I tried modifying the .properties file to directly store UTF string format (\uXXXX), there wont be any problem. But of course using this method is quite cumbersome so I prefer to localize the string into a readable japanese character.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
ferdie

Answer 1

There is a very useful little utility supplied with the Java SDK called native2ascii.exe (I am assuming you are using windows).
You can edit a copy of your properties file using Japanese characters.
Create a batch file which does the following
native2ascii %1 > %2Where the %1 and %2 are the source and destination files, source = your edited copy, destination = the properties file as accessed by your application.
native2ascii.exe converts the special characters into the \uXXXX format for you. As long as you remember to keep the native version separate from the ascii version everything will work out fine.