Localization Help

Question

I'm writing a program and need to know how dates, versions, time, and numbers are formatted in the French Language

Example (in English)

Version 1.0.0 (Build 0)

How would that look in French?

Answer 1

Version is the same in French as in English, and I would not translate Build because it's technical terminology and there is no good equivalent. Version numbers must be consistent and are not translated in any way.

As for dates and times, the colloquial way to write today's date (May 14) is “le 14 mai 2012” and time would be “10h02”, but the technical way to write it is 14/5/2012 and 10:02. Also, dates written in French almost always use 24 hours format nowadays, only orally we would say “huit heures du matin” (8h00) or “huit heures du soir / vingt heures” (20h00).

Last, numbers are formatted like this: “2 718 281,828”. There is usually a space separator¹ every 3 digits and a comma before the fractional part. However they are usually typed without spaces 2718281,828 inside an input box.

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_{1. Ideally a narrow no-break space (U+202F). It's standard practice, and it helps to prevent fraud (manual digit insertion in printed documents).}

Answer 2

Les dates se codifient très souvent avec

• le numéro du jour, sans zéro à gauche pour la première décade,
• le mois en lettres, souvent abrégé sur 3 ou 4 caractères
• l'année sur quatre chiffres

3 mars 2011, 4 jan 2012, 29 fév 2004, avr, mai, juin, juil, aout, sept, oct, nov, déc. L'accent est parfois supprimé.

Dans un courrier officiel, le nom du mois est en entier et commence par une minuscule.