SRV.5.8 Internationalization

Clients may optionally indicate to a web server what language they would prefer the response be given in. This information can be communicated from the client using the Accept-Language header along with other mechanisms described in the HTTP/1.1 specification. The following methods are provided in the ServletRequest interface to determine the preferred locale of the sender:

• getLocale

• getLocales

The getLocale method will return the preferred locale that the client will accept content in. See Section 14.4 of RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1) for more information about how the Accept-Language header must be interpreted to determine the preferred language of the client.

The getLocales method will return an Enumeration of Locale objects indicating, in decreasing order starting with the preferred locale, the locales that are acceptable to the client.

If no preferred locale is specified by the client, the locale returned by the getLocale method must be the default locale for the servlet container and the getLocales method must contain an enumeration of a single locale element of the default locale.