Localization bug and fix in the Address Book

Aug 28, '02 09:21:32AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

There is a localization bug in the Address book app of OS X 10.2.

In edit mode, when I choose the formatting option of an address ("Change Address Formating" popup menu) as "Australia," then my address is formatted with the address formatting style of Austria. For the record, these are two different countries which have virtually no cultural similarities!

So I started using Canada's address formating -- it's the same as Australia's (city, state, postalcode) but the web services stuff in the address book breaks as it derives a person's "Country" not from the Country field of the address, but from a style you select in order to apply formating to the address fields. For example, the Map service believes my address is in Canada (assigning the code "ca") even though the Country field contains "Australia" -- "Canada" is just the name of the address formating style I've selected. Does the concept of separation of style from content not appeal to Apple?

THE FIX: The configuration file for the OS X 10.2 Address formatting resides in System -> Library -> Frameworks -> AddressBook.framework -> Versions -> A -> Resources -> addrFormat.plist. The formatting of this text file is pretty straight forward - just copy the Canada settings to the Australia entry, and remember you'll need to edit the file as root.

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