YendorMike writes:

[i18n] That's "internationalization", for the uninitiated.

Yeah, and isn't it annoying as all Hell when everybody just uses that, but nobody tells you HOW the fuck exactly "i18n" is supposed mean to "internationalization"? I tried to pronounce "Eyeeighteennnn" with various accents and in different tones of voice, but I could'nt for the life of me understand it...

Only last week did it strike me that 'internationalization' has twenty letters -- an 'i', eighteen various and sundry other letters, and an 'n'! (By the same token, I've seen " L10N" used for "localization".)

There, hopefully I've now helped spare someone some of the same mental agony I went through! :-)

Then we get to his point:

Another person on the team offered his initial opinion that all phone numbers should be displayed based on the Locale of the person viewing them.

My argument against this is that a phone number is tied to a location, and should not be reformatted based upon who is viewing it. All US phone numbers should display as (123) 456-7890, no matter whether the person viewing the web page is in the US or Mexico.

You're totally wrong. The reasons *why* you are totally wrong are:

1) A telephone number's main function is not just to be viewed; it is supposed to be *used* (by dialling it).

2) The funny formatting is a convention that tells the prospective caller *how* to use it (specifically, mainly as to which parts he can omit depending on where he is; but also, and in this case more importantly, where he should pause and listen for a renewed dial tone).

3) The person viewing the telephone number in his Web browser in Mexico -- or Abu Dhabi or Norway or whatever -- is probably viewing it not just for fun, but because *he* is a prospective caller, so *he* needs to know how to use it.

Personally -- and remember that I'm speaking as a Scandinavian, i.e pretty much an expert on American popular "culture" compared to much of the rest of the world -- I've never understood the weird Yank convention of writing telephone numbers as "(123) 456-7890" and so on. How much of that is the area code? One would think, just the bit in parentheses -- but then WTF is the dash all about? And do I dial it all in one fell swoop, without pausing for a dial tone at any point? If so, then why have any weird delimiters at all? And if not, then where do I pause -- at the dash? After the bit in parentheses? Both? Neither? Who the fuck knows...

And if I am this clueless -- I, who at least know why the bit before the dash is almost always "555" on film and TV -- then just imagine what shade of confused you can colour your average Burundian or Burmese.

Anyway, to recap: Phone numbers are formatted to tell the user how to use them, and not all users are helped by the American formatting conventions.

HTH!

---

Now, if you wanted to just one single format, then why not use the standard? You may not know it; I didn't, until my old net.acquaintance Julian Macassey told me once -- back around the turn of the century it was, I think -- but there is actually an international standard for how to format telephone numbers. IIRC, your example should become something like "1.123.456.7890", according to Julian. Now, you don't know mr Macassey from Adam -- but how could you *not* believe a man whose domain is [link|http://tele.com|tele.com]? :-)

A quick bit of Googling shows that Julian was pretty much right:

The Global Web Architecture Group (whatever that is) has a [link|http://www.globalwebarch.com/freesite/RDBMS-GG-C04-3.html|Web Globalization Guide Framework, by the Relational Logistics Group] which says, about halfway down the page, "Examples with Punctuation and Segments: + 1.480.368.1799 USA".

Hmm... I could have sworn I saw some examples somewhere, where spaces were used in stead of the periods.

Not to worry, though -- for only 20 CHF (Swiss Francs), the [link|http://www.itu.int/rec/recommendation.asp?type=items&lang=E&parent=T-REC-E.123-200102-I|ITU - the International Telecommunications Union] is ready and willing to sell you the complete specs of the international standard, in any one of three languages and two file formats.

Even [link|http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/getwr/steps/wrg_telnum.mspx|Microsoft] comments on the issue, but they only go from "the format for telephone numbers around the world varies significantly" at the top of the page, to "The current implementation of NLS APIs and the .NET Framework do not provide any telephone-number formatting information. ... (You will need to do your own parsing for these separators.)"

I suppose you'd be better off using something called [link|http://www.liferay.com/|Liferay Portal]. At least this [link|http://forums.liferay.com/index.php?showtopic=813|support forum thread] and this [link|http://support.liferay.com/browse/LEP-212|CVS commit log] show not only that they know about the problem, but they're actually doing something about it.

As usual, Wikipedia has an exhaustive (read that however you will...) entry on the issue, entitled [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code|Telephone numbering plan].

But, to summarise: Phone numbers are formatted to tell the user how to use them, and not all users are helped by the American formatting conventions.

HTH!