Common Locale Data Repository

The Common Locale Data Repository Project, often abbreviated as CLDR, is a project of the Unicode Consortium to provide locale data in the XML format for use in computer applications. CLDR contains locale specific information that an operating system will typically provide to applications. CLDR is written in LDML (Locale Data Markup Language). The information is currently used in International Components for Unicode, Apple Computer's Mac OS X, and OpenOffice.org, IBM's AIX, among other applications and operating systems.

CLDR contains the following types of data:

• Translations for language names.
• Translations for territory and country names.
• Translations for currency names.
• Translations for timezones.
• Translations for calendar fields.
• Example set characters used by each language.
• Patterns for formatting/parsing a number.
• Patterns for formatting/parsing a date or time.
• Rules for language specific collation.
• Rules for transliteration between scripts. A lot of it is based on BGN/PCGN romanization.

It overlaps somewhat with ISO 15897 (POSIX locales). POSIX locale information can be derived from CLDR by using some of CLDR's conversion tools.

CLDR is maintained by the CLDR technical committee, which includes organizations from IBM, Apple, Sun Microsystems and some government based organizations. The committee is currently chaired by Mark Davis (Google) and Deborah Goldsmith (Apple).

[edit] External links

• Common Locale Data Repository, the informational webpage of the CLDR project
• Windows CLDR Tool Open source tool to import CLDR locales into Windows Vista.