code: 
  
  /*
   * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
   * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
   * distributed with this work for additional information
   * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
   * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the  "License");
   * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
   * You may obtain a copy of the License at
   *
   *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
   *
   * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
   * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
   * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   * limitations under the License.
   */
  /*
   * $Id$
   */
  
  package org.apache.xml.utils;
  
  import java.util.Locale;
  
  /**
   * @author Igor Hersht, igorh@ca.ibm.com
   */
  public class LocaleUtility {
      /**
       * IETF RFC 1766 tag separator
       */
      public final static char IETF_SEPARATOR = '-';  
      public final static String EMPTY_STRING = ""; 
      
     
   public static Locale langToLocale(String lang) {
         if((lang == null) || lang.equals(EMPTY_STRING)){ // not specified => getDefault
              return Locale.getDefault();
         }
          String language = EMPTY_STRING;
          String country =  EMPTY_STRING;
          String variant =  EMPTY_STRING;
  
          int i1 = lang.indexOf(IETF_SEPARATOR);
          if (i1 < 0) {
              language = lang;
          } else {
              language = lang.substring(0, i1);
              ++i1;
              int i2 = lang.indexOf(IETF_SEPARATOR, i1);
              if (i2 < 0) {
                  country = lang.substring(i1);
              } else {
                  country = lang.substring(i1, i2);
                  variant = lang.substring(i2+1);
              }
          }
          
          if(language.length() == 2){
             language = language.toLowerCase();
          }else {
            language = EMPTY_STRING;
          }
          
          if(country.length() == 2){
             country = country.toUpperCase();
          }else {
            country = EMPTY_STRING;
          }
          
          if((variant.length() > 0) && 
          ((language.length() == 2) ||(country.length() == 2))){
             variant = variant.toUpperCase();
          }else{
              variant = EMPTY_STRING;
          }
               
          return new Locale(language, country, variant );
      }
      
    
     
   }
    
  
  