Going international with Javascript

There's more to the world than English, and software construction often has to account for that. This article outlines the ECMAScript Internationalization API, which provides a number of useful functions for easy internationalization.


Posted on Jan 01, '24

Software often needs to adapt to various languages, regions, and cultural conventions, ensuring a seamless user experience across diverse audiences. Internationalization, or i18n, holds a crucial role in crafting code that transcend geographical boundaries. And ECMAScript Internationalization API incorporates a number of easy to use functions to implement internationalization easily. This article is a concise exploration of the Intl namespace and the functions it offers.

Language Localization

Core to internationalization is language localization. JavaScript APIs can support multiple languages by creating language-specific versions of content and UI elements. Libraries like ‘i18next’ aid in implementing language-switching mechanisms, allowing for resource loading in different languages. The ‘Intl’ object in JavaScript also offers functions such as locale-specific segmentation and plurals to help contextualize apps to the local audiences.

Date and Time Formatting

The ‘Intl’ object in JavaScript offers tools to format dates, times, and numbers based on the user’s locale. This ensures a consistent and culturally relevant representation of temporal information.

Number Formatting

JavaScript APIs leverage the ‘Intl’ object to format numbers, including decimals and currencies, based on the user’s locale. This ensures numerical information is presented in a universally understandable manner.