Whilst maps can be translated with ease, there are other language issues which may affect your application. If you are storing text on the database, you will need to add an extra key to each textual record. This allows the record to be linked to the user's nationality. For example, in a retail system, you may store item descriptions in English, German and French. To do this, you construct a two-part key that includes the language code:
To display records from the table, your program supplies the language code, and this code is used in combination with the item code to display an item description.
QAB programs can use special maps, known as word strings, to avoid the need for hard-coded language specific text, and a similar facility is available to C programmers.