Your Regional Setting is used anytime a date or time-related piece of information is displayed in the User Interface:

• All date displays are formatted according to your regional setting.
• All time displays are formatted according to your regional settings.
• All month names are appropriate for your regional settings.
• All day of week names are appropriate for your regional settings.
• The first day of the week is appropriate for your regional settings.

In addition to controlling how WorldServer should display dates and times, the Regional Settings controls how you input new date or time information.

For time- or date-based fields, you can manually type a value in the appropriate format. For example, if your regional setting is German, you can type the value 31.12.2006 19:25 to indicate 7:25 PM on the last day of 2006. The actual date and time formats that are acceptable are determined by your Regional Setting.

Note: UTC date and time formats are always allowed.

If you enter a format incompatible with your regional setting, you get a message like the following:

The value "32.12.06 19:25" for the attribute "Custom Date" is not a valid date. Please try again using the correct format, for example: "27.04.98" or "27.04.98 19:25".

You can also set the value for any time- or date-based attribute using a “date picker” interface. Selecting a date via the date picker sets the date to a value that is appropriate for your regional setting.

Note: The date picker does not allow you to select a time for the attribute. However, you can manually enter the time after using the date picker.

If you do not specify a time, WorldServer will display the time 5:00 PM in your time zone of your regional setting.

WorldServer only has a single custom attribute type called Date that is used to display both dates and times. The most typical use of this field is to get and set date values. However, the attribute type also supports times as well.

If you entered only a date and did not enter a time, then the user interface does not display the time. If you explicitly entered a time, the time is displayed.

Note: In versions prior to WorldServer 9.0, WorldServer always displayed both a date and a time, even if you didn't specify a time.

The following characteristics of numbers are affected by your Regional Setting preference:

• The character used as the “decimal separator”. In U.S. English this is a period (that is, “.”) whereas in many European countries this is a comma (that is, “,”). For example, to represent the number that is halfway between two and three a U.S. resident would write 2.5 while a resident of Spain would write 2,5.
• The character used as the “thousands separator.” In English (United States), this is a comma (that is, “,”) whereas in many European countries, this is a period (that is, “.”). For example, to represent the number that is halfway between two thousand and three thousand, a U.S. resident would write 2,500 while a resident of Spain would write 2.500.
• The actual rules of number formatting can even be more complex than this. Some languages do not use the “thousands separator” every 3 digits and instead have complicated rules on when to use it. The Regional Settings would impact how this is displayed.

WorldServer uses the following rules to determine whether your Regional Setting preference should be used to format numbers displayed:

• WorldServer does not display all numbers as formatted numbers. Sometimes WorldServer displays integer numbers without formatting (for example, 123456); if the number is an ID or some other numeric string where the numeric value isn’t really significant, it is not formatted.
• If a number is used to count elements (for example, a count of entries in a field) the number is formatted properly.
• Integer-type custom attributes are presumed to contain values treated as meaningful numbers and are displayed with formatting.

WorldServer supports the Regional Settings preferences when displaying percentages; if a fractional percentage is shown, the decimal separator is appropriate to your regional setting. In addition, the your regional settings may control the precision of the percentage display (for example, how many fractional digits to show).

Generally, when you enter numeric data into a field in WorldServer, you do not use formatting. For example, to type the number halfway between two thousand and three thousand, you would enter 2500. However, you can enter values according to your Regional Settings. For example, if your regional setting is U.S. English, you can enter 2,500. If your regional setting is German, you can enter 2.500. Both are interpreted as if you typed in 2500. If you enter a numeric value that is not valid based on your Regional Settings, you get an error message like the following:

The value "123,456" for the attribute "Custom Number" is not a valid integer between 0 and 2147483647. Please try again using the correct format, for example: "123456” or “123.456”.

To properly display monetary information—for example, in Cost Models—WorldServer draws on two different sources.

Your Regional Settings are used to determine the following aspects of the display:

• What thousands separator (for example, “,” or “.” or “ ”) to use
• What decimal separator (for example, “.” or “,”) to use
• How to represent negative numbers (for example, with a leading “-” or by surrounding the number in parenthesis)
• Where the currency information should be displayed (for example, in front of the number or after the number)

The selected currency is used to determine the following aspects of the display:

• The minimum number of decimal places to show in the number

The selected currency and your Regional Settings are combined to determine the following aspects of the display:

• The representation of the currency information (for example, “$” or “USD”)

WorldServer displays monetary information in a fully formatted display based on your Regional Settings and the currency being used.

There are a few locations where you are allowed to enter monetary values. For example, in the Cost Model definition page, you type in costs for each range in the selected scoping configuration. In the Cost Model Rule definition page, you type in the cost for the charge or discount being applied.

In each location where you are allowed to type in monetary values, WorldServer does not display currency information. However, WorldServer does follow all of the other rules for monetary information display. For example, a setting that would normally be displayed as $1234.50 would be displayed as 1234.50.

When WorldServer presents the results of applying a cost model to a scoping report, the column called Cost Estimate displays the ISO-standard three-letter abbreviation for the currency in the column header and, to save space, WorldServer does not display the currency information in the rest of the column.

When you define a Cost Model Rule, you specify the numeric value for the discount or charge, but you do not specify a currency. Instead, the currency is inherited when you associate that particular Cost Model Rule with a specific Cost Model (which does have a currency). Because of this, you could have a single Cost Model Rule that when applied to one cost model means to add a surcharge of $10.00 but when applied to another cost model means to add a surcharge of 10.00 €.

To avoid this problem, the only time a Cost Model Rule will show currency information is when it has been combined with a Cost Model; anytime a Cost Model Rule is presented in isolation, it cannot display currency information.

There is no way to pass the regional setting information onto JasperReports, the reporting engine shipped with WorldServer, for it to use. Therefore, you must control the formatting in JasperReports separately through the functionality it offers.

The WorldServer log files do not conform to your regional setting; the format of the times in the log file is controlled by the log4j settings in general.properties. Therefore, if you view the log files through WorldServer, you may see a different time and date format than you expected from your regional setting.