Global settings on UNIX and Linux operating systems

If the console attached to your UNIX or Linux® operating system computer does not support a Java-based graphical user interface, you must manually edit the coglocale.xml file.

You can change global settings

  • to specify the language used in the user interface when the language in the user's locale is not available
  • to specify the locale used in reports when the user's locale is not available
  • to add currency or locale support to report data and metadata
  • to add language support to the user interface

By default, IBM® Cognos® Analytics components ensure that all locales, which may come from different sources and in various formats, use a normalized form. That means that all expanded locales conform to a language and regional code setting.

Before you can add language support to the user interface, you must install the language files on all computers in your distributed installation. For more information, contact your support representative.

Example 1

A report is available in Content Manager in two locales, such as en-us (English-United States) and fr-fr (French-France), but the user locale is set to fr-ca (French-Canadian). IBM Cognos uses the locale mapping to determine which report the user sees.

First, IBM Cognos checks to see if the report is available in Content Manager in the user's locale. If it is not available in the user's locale, IBM Cognos maps the user's locale to a normalized locale configured on the Content Locale Mapping tab. Because the user's locale is fr-ca, it is mapped to fr. IBM Cognos uses the mapped value to see if the report is available in fr. In this case, the report is available in en-us and fr-fr, not fr.

Next, IBM Cognos maps each of the available reports to a normalized locale. Therefore, en-us becomes en and fr-fr becomes fr.

Because both report and the user locale maps to fr, the user having the user locale fr-ca will see the report saved with the locale fr-fr.

Example 2

The user's locale and the report locales all map to the same language. IBM Cognos chooses which locale to use. For example, if a user's locale is en-ca (English-Canada) and the reports are available in en-us (English-United States) and en-gb (English-United Kingdom), IBM Cognos maps each locale to en. The user will see the report in the locale setting that IBM Cognos chooses.

Example 3

The report and the user locales do not map to a common language. IBM Cognos chooses the language. In this case, you may want to configure a mapping. For example, if a report is available in en-us (English-United States) and fr-fr (French-France), but the user locale is es-es (Spanish-Spain), IBM Cognos chooses the language.