PWB508 Developing International Applications Using PowerBuilder

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PWB508 Developing International Applications
Using PowerBuilder
Jinyou ZhuSenior Software Engineer
jyzhu_at_sybase.comAugust 8, 2003
Guo-Bi WuSenior Software Engineer
guo-bi.wu_at_sybase.com
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Developing International Applications Using PB
Presentation Outline

• Overview of Internationalization
• Current status
• PowerBuilder 9 for international application
  development
• PowerBuilder 10 Unicode
• Q A

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Overview of Internationalization
Two phases for Internationalization

• Localization (L10N)
• The process in which software is customized for
  each language you want to support.
• The GUI/Doc translation will be done at this
  stage.
• Internationalization (I18N)
• The process in which code is modified to be
  culturally independent.

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Localization (L10N)
GUI Documentation
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Internationalization (I18N)
Process generalization

• Choose code page
• Determine what character set to support. It is
  the mapping table of characters to their
  numerical value.
• Different countries use different code pages.
• Standard for Code Pages (ASCII, EBCDIC, JIS
  (Japanese standard), GB2312-80(Simplified Chinese
  standard), Big5 (Traditional Chinese standard),
  etc)
• Choose locales
• Determine the format for text, number, date,
  currency, etc.
• Externalization of strings, icons and graphics
  with text.
• Modifying all the text manipulation functions to
  be aware of the code page.
• Numeric and Currency Formatting.
• Date and Time Formatting
• Collation (sorting order)
• Cultural consideration
• Icons pictures

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Choose Code Pages
Choose Code Pages

• MBCS/DBCS/SBCS
• It will use the code page and systems locale for
  your application.
• It is used in most applications currently.
• Unicode
• Unicode provides a unique number for every
  character, no matter what the platform, or
  language.
• It is better and natural for international
  applications.

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MBCS/DBCS/SBCS
What is MBCS ?

• MBCS -- Multi bytes Character Set
• Use multi-bytes to represent a character.
• DBCS -- Double Character Set
• Use double bytes to represent a character such as
  Chinese, Japanese.
• SBCS -- Use one byte, such as English, most
  European languages
• MBCS/DBCS/SBCS Features
• MBCS/DBCS are compatible to SBCS
• Use 1 byte to represent ASCII
• Use 2 bytes to represent other characters such as
  Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc.

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Unicode
What is Unicode ?

• Unicode provides a unique number for every
  character, no matter what the platform, or
  language.
• There are 2 sets of Unicode
• UCS-2 use one 16bit unit (2 bytes) to represent
  a character. (up to 65535 characters)
• UCS-4 use one 32bit unit (4 bytes) to represent
  a character. UCS-4 is a superset of UCS-2. It
  includes more characters.
• There are 3 popular Unicode Transformation
  Formats
• UTF-8 Use 1 to 4 bytes to represent one Unicode
  character. ASCII characters is the same as those
  in ASCII. To represent UCS-2, need 1 to 3 bytes.
  To represent UCS-4, needs 1-4 bytes.
• UTF-16 Use 1 or 2 (for UCS-4) 16bit unit to
  represent one Unicode character.
• UTF-32 Use 1 32bit unit to represent one Unicode
  character.

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PB 9 for international application development
Features for international application development

• PowerBuilder 9 is a DBCS system. It can process
  and display DBCS characters only.
• PowerBuilder 9 support Unicode database
• The multi-Language character can be stored in the
  Unicode database.
• PowerBuilder 9 support some Multi-Language code
  pages
• The database can support Multi-Language code
  pages such as CP850.
• PowerBuilder 9 makes full use of your current
  locale
• If your default locale support one language,
  PowerBuilder 9 can process/display the language.
• Conversion
• The conversion will be based on the default
  locale. When process the data, PowerBuilder 9
  will convert it to your current locale, then
  display them.

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How Does it work in PowerBuilder 9 ? (2-tiers)
2-tier system
Database
Data Convert
DB Driver
PB internal
DBCS
UI/DW
Web Service
DBCS
WS Client
Localized OS
EJB/DB
EJB JDBC
Server
Client
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How Does it work in PowerBuilder 9 ? (n-tiers)
3-tier system
App Server
Database
Component
DB Driver
PB internal
NVO
UTF8
DBCS
UI/DW
Convert
DBCS
Web Service
WS
UTF8
UTF
NVO
Localized OS
JDBC
DB
UNI
App Server
Client
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An example Address Book
Sample database and table

• There is a Unicode database, which support
  multi-languages
• The structure and data of the table are

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An example Address Book (cont)
Configurations and Tips

• Tips
• Because PowerBuilder 9 is a DBCS application
  running on a localized Operating system, it can
  only support the language(s), which your OS
  supports.
• Because conversion from Unicode to the code page
  of your current locale will happen, you have to
  arrange your data (in database) carefully.
• If you simply show all data in DW, some
  rows/columns will be garbage.

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Develop international applications in
PowerBuilder 9
Problem

• Issues
• Extra effort on database and data manipulation
  (select and update).
• Internationalization must be well planed and
  difficult to implement.
• Cannot show Multi-Languages in a single form.
• There were hundreds of different, sometimes
  unrelated, systems of encoding. The effort to add
  one more language support will be huge.

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PowerBuilder 10
For International application development

• Fully support Unicode
• PowerBuilder 10 is Unicode enabled. It uses
  Unicode as its native code page for all
  components.
• It can process multi-language data in one
  application and display them in a single form.

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Why use Unicode ?

• Unicode allows a program or website to be
  targeted for multiple platforms, languages and
  countries.
• It defines codes for all characters used in all
  major languages written today.
• It is able to encode multilingual text.
• Unicode is the official way to implement ISO/IEC
  10646.
• It has been adopted by many of the industry
  leaders.
• It allows data transfer between different systems
  without corruption.

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Benefits
Benefits

• Unicode can handle text in any language or any
  combination of languages.
• You can process and show characters in
  multi-language in the single form.
• It is possible that one application fits for all
  languages.
• Conversion is only necessary on incoming and
  outgoing data without corrupt.
• No data lose when convert from any code page to
  Unicode.
• It simplifies operations on text because there is
  no longer a need to keep track of what encoding
  scheme is being used.
• Disadvantages
• Because one character in Unicode take 2 bytes, it
  consume more memory.

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PowerBuilder 10 New Features
New Features related to Unicode

• Fully support Unicode.
• New PBL format to cover multi-language support.
• Migration tool to old PBL format to new one.
• Export object to a Unicode file.
• Import ANSI Unicode objects to PB10.
• Support ANSI Unicode APIs form PBNI.
• JSP will support ANSI, UTF8, and UTF16.
• Read/write both ANSI and Unicode files in
  PowerScript.
• Support Unicode non-Unicode database.

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Example Demo
Demo

• Use the same database and same example as above.

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SDN Presents CodeXchange
Share PowerBuilder 9 Code and Tools

• New SDN feature enables community collaboration
• Download samples created by Sybase
• Leverage contributions of others to exploit PBNI
  (i.e. PBNI CommonDialog, PBNI OLEObject
  utilities)
• Contribute your own code or start your own
  collaborative project with input from other
  PowerBuilder experts
• Any SDN member can participate
• Log in using your MySybase account via SDN
• Join the collaboration already underway
• http//powerbuilder.codexchange.sybase.com or via
  SDN at www.sybase.com/developer
• SDN CodeXchange at TechWave
• Technology Boardwalk
• Sybase Booth Theater

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SDN Presents CodeXchange
A New Benefit for Sybase Developers

• Forum for exchanging samples, tools, scripts,
  etc.
• New features enable community collaboration
• Download samples created by Sybase or external
  users
• Leverage contributions of others to extend Sybase
  tools
• Contribute code or start your own collaborative /
  open source project with input from other product
  experts
• Any SDN member can participate
• Log in using your MySybase account via SDN
• Join the collaboration already underway
• http//www.codexchange.sybase.com or via SDN at
  www.sybase.com/developer
• Visit SDN in the Technology Boardwalk or the
  Sybase Booth Theater

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Q A

• Thank You