Question

Are there any constants for language codes like "en" or "de" in java or in a java library? (Or is using the strings OK?)

I know that something like

Locale.COUNTRY-NAME.getLanguage()

would work, but I am searching for something more streamlined like

Locale.LANGUAGE-NAME

Answer 1

I am afraid there aren’t constants for all languages.
You do have several predefined Locales such as Locale.UK Locale.US, etc. Each locale has a language code which can be obtained via the getLanguage() method.

To get all language code supported by the underlying JVM use getISOLanguages()

for(String lang : Locale.getISOLanguages()) {
  System.out.println(lang);
}

More details: http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html