Question

I’m working on localizing some strings in our application and we have text that looks something like:

Factor f (1.0, 1.2, or 1.5)

In a locale that uses a comma for the decimal point, would this be written as:

Factor f (1,0, 1,2, or 1,5)

Maybe it’s just not what I’m accustomed to, but that looks crazy hard to read quickly.

I’m also wondering about text like version numbers. Would Firefox 3.5.1 be Firefox 3,5,1?

Answer 1

If I understand what you are looking for, there are two things in regards to Internationalization here:

• Decimal separator
• List separator

Obviously these separators are quite tightly coupled, so in Locale that uses comma as decimal separator, list separator must be something else. Usually this is a semicolon and there just a few Locales that uses something different than comma or semicolon for list separator.

To summarize:

In Locales that uses dot as a decimal separator, comma is usually used as a list separator, so in some free-form text you might expect something like Factor f (1.0, 1.2, or 1.5).
In Locales that uses comma as a decimal separator, semicolon is typically used as a list separator – Faktor f (1,0; 1,2; oder 1,5) is something you should expect.

I am not sure what you are up to (the technology does matter in the advice) but you can leave the format as well as list separator to the translators to decide. In .Net list separator is given, though (no need to ask translators for input, just use appropriate property of CultureInfo class).