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.. -*- mode: rst; encoding: utf-8 -*-
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The functionality Babel provides for internationalization (I18n) and
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localization (L10N) can be separated into two different aspects:
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* tools to build and work with ``gettext`` message catalogs, and
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* a Python interface to the CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository), providing
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access to various locale display names, localized number and date
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While the Python standard library includes a :mod:`gettext` module that
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enables applications to use message catalogs, it requires developers to
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build these catalogs using GNU tools such as ``xgettext``, ``msgmerge``,
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and ``msgfmt``. And while ``xgettext`` does have support for extracting
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messages from Python files, it does not know how to deal with other kinds
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of files commonly found in Python web-applications, such as templates, nor
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does it provide an easy extensibility mechanism to add such support.
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Babel addresses this by providing a framework where various extraction
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methods can be plugged in to a larger message extraction framework, and
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also removes the dependency on the GNU ``gettext`` tools for common tasks,
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as these aren't necessarily available on all platforms. See
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:ref:`messages` for details on this aspect of Babel.
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Furthermore, while the Python standard library does include support for
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basic localization with respect to the formatting of numbers and dates
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(the :mod:`locale` module, among others), this support is based on the
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assumption that there will be only one specific locale used per process
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(at least simultaneously.) Also, it doesn't provide access to other kinds
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of locale data, such as the localized names of countries, languages, or
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time-zones, which are frequently needed in web-based applications.
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For these requirements, Babel includes data extracted from the `Common
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Locale Data Repository (CLDR) <http://unicode.org/cldr/>`_, and provides a
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number of convenient methods for accessing and using this data. See
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:ref:`locale-data`, :ref:`date-and-time`, and :ref:`numbers` for more
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information on this aspect of Babel.