Chapter  9
Internationalization

WML and the UP.Link platform support a large variety of languages and character sets. This chapter describes how to make your service globally accessible.

Internationalization requires you to consider two principal issues:

• Language handling--the UP.Link platform uses existing Web standards for language handling. The UP.Phone indicates its language preferences to the UP.Link Server, which relays this information to the WML service by setting the Accept-Language HTTP header. It is up to the WML service to check the header and provide content localized for the specified language.
• Character set handling--the UP.Link platform follows existing Web standards for character set handling; it also removes most of the burden of character set handling from WML services. When the UP.Link Server relays data between an UP.Phone and a WML service, it attempts to deliver the data in a character set that each one understands. If the UP.Phone and the WML service use different character sets, the UP.Link Server transcodes the data, mapping it from one character set to the other. To enable the UP.Link Server to transcode data correctly, your service must correctly set the appropriate HTTP headers and WML attributes.