Abstract

A distributed, interactive data processing system provided with the ability to allow concurrent multi-lingual use by a plurality of users having different national language preferences is further provided with the ability to be independent of the national language in which an input to the data processing system is received. A message model data collection (18) is established by storing message models via a message identifier primary key and a secondary key that is the national language index. A central message service (17) is used to compose messages from message models retrieved from the message model data collection (18) using the primary and secondary keys in response to a call from an application (10), application control (12) or supervisor (13) program. The calling program stores a message identifier primary key as the value of a variable and causes an event to be stacked for an event handler (19). The event handler (19) uses the message identifier to request composition of that message from central message service (17). Central message service (17) determines the user's national language index which together with the message identifier allow the message model to be retrieved from the message model data collection (18), and the message to be composed and stored in a variable accessible to the event handler (19). The event handler (19) uses that information to store values in variables accessible to the calling program. The calling program can then use the contents of those variables to determine whether the user's input has meaning recognized by the program.