1.1 How to Read this Section

This section of the User's Guide deals with locales in the Standard C++ Library. Since the focus here is on concepts rather than details, you will want to consult the Class Reference for more complete information.

We begin the section with an introduction to internationalization in general. It is intended to explain why and how locales are useful for the benefit of readers with no experience in this area. Eventually it will include a reference for the standard facets, but not in this first version of the User's Guide. Hence, the section may look a bit unbalanced for the time being.

Following the introduction, we describe the facilities in C that are currently available for internationalizing software. Users with a background in C will want to understand how the C locale differs from the C++ locale. Some developers may even need to know how the two locales interact.

For their benefit, we then contrast the concept of the C++ locale with the C locale. We learn what a C++ locale is, what facets are, how locales are created and composed, and how facets are used, replaced, and defined. The standard facets are only briefly described here, but details are available in the Class Reference.

For the advanced user, we conclude the internationalization section with a rather complex example of a user-defined facet, which demonstrates how facets can be built and used in conjunction with iostreams.

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