Version: 2002-Apr-10
Copyright © 1997-2002 International Business Machines Corporation and
others. All Rights Reserved.
Today's software market is a global one in which it is desirable to develop and maintain one application (single source/single binary) that supports a wide variety of languages. The International Components for Unicode (C/C++) provides tools to help write platform-independent applications that are internationalized and localized, with support for:
ICU has a sister project ICU4J that extends the internationalization capabilities of Java to a level similar to ICU. The ICU C/C++ project is also called ICU4C when a distinction is necessary.
This document describes how to build and install ICU on your machine.
For other information about ICU please see the following table of
links.
The ICU homepage also links to related information about writing
internationalized software.
ICU Homepage | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/ |
ICU4J Homepage | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu4j/ |
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions about ICU | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/userguide/icufaq.html |
ICU User's Guide | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/userguide/ |
Download ICU Releases | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/download/ |
API Documentation Online | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/apiref/ |
Online ICU Demos | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/demo/ |
Contacts and Bug Reports/Feature Requests | http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/archives/ |
Important: Please make sure you understand the Copyright and License Information.
The following list concentrates on changes that affect existing applications migrating from previous ICU releases. For more news about this release, see the ICU 2.1 download page.
ICU 2.0 has been upgraded to support Unicode 3.1.1, which includes the addition of 44,946 new encoded characters. These characters cover several historic scripts, several sets of symbols, and a very large collection of additional CJK ideographs.
As part of this upgrade, a number of ICU services have been reviewed and improved with regards to handling supplementary characters (surrogate pairs). Especially, normalization is revamped for support of supplementary characters and higher performance.
ICU 2.1 also includes Corrigendum #3: U+F951 Normalization.
ICU is carefully tested for memory leaks. Some memory is held in internal caches that do not normally get released during normal operation. These are not leaks because ICU continues to use them as necessary.
For testing purposes (for memory leaks) and for a small number of
applications it can be useful to close all the memory that is allocated for
a library. ICU 2.0 supports this with a new function u_cleanup()
that may be called after an application has released all ICU objects.
u_cleanup()
will then release all of ICU's internal memory.
The ICU libraries can then even be unloaded cleanly without shutting down
the process.
ICU data loading is simplified for most users. By default, the ICU build
creates a DLL/shared library that is linked directly with the common
library ([lib]icuuc
). By placing all ICU libraries including
the data library into the same folder, ICU should start up and find its
data immediately. Dynamic loading of data from DLLs/shared libraries is not
supported any more.
Before ICU 2.0, ICU did not itself link directly with its data library,
but some ICU applications did (like the Xerces XML parser) and called
udata_setCommonData()
. This is not necessary any more in the
default case.
On the other hand, this same technique can now be used to efficiently load
application data (e.g., for its own localization). An application can build
a data DLL/library of its own, link it, and call the new API
udata_setAppData()
.
For details on finding and loading ICU data and on options for portable, common data files etc. see the User's Guide ICU Data Chapter.
It was discovered that some parts of ICU were not initialized in a thread safe manner. This has been fixed.
There are two ways to download ICU releases:
In the descriptions below, <ICU> is the
full path name of the icu directory (the top level directory from the
distribution archives) in your file system. You can also view the User's Guide to
see which libraries you need for your software product. You need at least
the data ([lib]icudt
) and the common ([lib]icuuc
)
libraries in order to use ICU.
readme.html | Describes the International Components for Unicode (this file) |
license.html | Contains the text of the ICU license |
<ICU>/source/common/ | The core Unicode and support functionality, such as resource bundles, character properties, locales, codepage conversion, normalization, Unicode properties, Locale, and UnicodeString. |
<ICU>/source/i18n/ | Modules in i18n are generally the more data-driven, that is to say resource bundle driven, components. These deal with higher-level internationalization issues such as formatting, collation, text break analysis, and transliteration. |
<ICU>/source/data |
This directory contains the source data in text format, which is
compiled into binary form during the ICU build process. It contains
several subdirectories, in which the data files are grouped by
function. Note that the build process must be run again after any
changes are made to this directory.
|
<ICU>/source/test/intltest/ | A test suite including all C++ APIs. For information about running the test suite, see the users' guide. |
<ICU>/source/test/cintltst/ | A test suite written in C, including all C APIs. For information about running the test suite, see the users' guide. |
<ICU>/source/test/testdata/ | Source text files for data, which are read by the tests. It contains the subdirectories out/build/ which is used for intermediate files, and out/ which contains the files test1.cnv through test4.cnv, and testdata.dat. Note that the tests call u_setDataDirectory("<ICU>/source/test/testdata/lib"), so that ICU will load these files as if they were part of the ICU data package, for testing purposes. This was formerly accomplished by setting the ICU_DATA environment variable to point at these files. ICU_DATA should not be set under normal circumstances. |
<ICU>/source/tools | Tools for generating the data files. Data files are generated by invoking <ICU>/source/data/build/makedata.bat on Win32 or <ICU>/source/make on Unix. |
<ICU>/source/samples | Various sample programs that use ICU |
<ICU>/source/extra | Non-supported API additions. Currently, it contains the 'ustdio' file i/o library |
<ICU>/source/layout/ | Contains the ICU layout engine (not a rasterizer). |
<ICU>/packaging/ <ICU>/debian/ |
These directories contain scripts and tools for packaging the final ICU build for various release platforms. |
<ICU>/source/config/ | Contains helper makefiles for platform specific build commands. Used by 'configure'. |
<ICU>/source/allinone/ | Contains top-level ICU workspace and project files, for instance to build all of ICU under one MSVC project. |
<ICU>/bin/ | Contains the libraries and executables for using ICU on Windows. |
<ICU>/include/ | Contains the headers needed for developing software that uses ICU on Windows. |
Operating system | Compiler | Testing frequency |
---|---|---|
Windows 98/NT/2000 | Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 | Reference platform |
Red Hat Linux 7.1 | gcc 2.96 | Reference platform |
AIX 5.1.0 L | Visual Age C++ 5.0 | Reference platform |
Solaris 2.7 | Workshop Pro CC 6.0 | Reference platform |
HP/UX 11.01 | aCC A.12.10 | Reference platform |
Windows XP | Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 | Regularly tested |
AIX 4.3.3 | xlC 3.6.6 | Regularly tested |
Solaris 2.6 | Workshop Pro CC 4.2 | Regularly tested |
Solaris 2.6 | gcc 2.91.66 | Regularly tested |
FreeBSD 4.4 | gcc 2.95.3 | Regularly tested |
HP/UX 11.01 | CC A.03.10 | Regularly tested |
Mac OS X (10.1) | gcc-932.1, based on gcc version 2.95.2 (Developer Tools December 2001) |
Regularly tested |
OS/390 (zSeries) | CC r10 | Regularly tested |
AS/400 (iSeries) V5R1 | iCC | Rarely tested |
NetBSD, OpenBSD | Rarely tested | |
SGI/IRIX | Rarely tested | |
Tru64 (OSF) | Copmaq's cxx compiler | Rarely tested |
Key to testing frequency
Building International Components for Unicode requires:
(If you want to build with Microsoft Visual C++ .NET, please refer to the note about building with Visual Studio .NET below.)
The steps are:
Using MSDEV At The Command Line Note: You can build ICU from the command line. Assuming that you have properly installed Microsoft Visual C++ to support command line execution, you can run the following command, 'msdev <ICU>\source\allinone\allinone.dsw /MAKE "ALL"'.
Setting Active Configuration Note: To set the active configuration, two different possibilities are:
Batch Configuration Note: If you want to build the Debug and Release configurations at the same time, choose "Build" menu and select "Batch Build..." instead (and mark all configurations as checked), then click the button named "Rebuild All". The "all" workspace will build all the libraries, test programs and various ICU tools (e.g. genrb for generating binary locale data files).
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Note: ICU will build with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, though this is not a supported platform at the time of this writing. Visual Studio .NET will offer to convert the project files when you open the existing workspace file. Choose "Yes to All" in the dialog asking whether to convert the files or not (this creates new files) and then follow the rest of the build instructions.
Building International Components for Unicode on Unix requires:
A UNIX C++ compiler, (gcc, CC, xlC_r, etc...) installed on the target machine. A recent version of GNU make (3.7+). For a list of OS/390 tools please view the OS/390 build section of this document for further details.
The steps are:
Configuring ICU NOTE: Type "./runConfigureICU --help" for help on how to run it and a list of supported platforms. You may also want to type "./configure --help" to print the available configure options that you may want to give runConfigureICU. If you are not using the runConfigureICU script, or your platform is not supported by the script, you may need to set your CC,CXX, CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS environment variables, and type "./configure". Some of the more frequently used options to configure are --disable-64bit-libs to create 32-bit libraries, and --srcdir to do out of source builds (build the libraries in the current location).
Running The Tests From The Command Line NOTE: You may have to set certain variables if you with to run test programs individually, that is apart from "make check". The TZ environment variable needs to be set to PST8PDT. Also, the environment variable ICU_DATA can be set to the full pathname of the data directory to indicate where the locale data files and conversion mapping tables are. The trailing "/" is required after the directory name (e.g. "$Root/source/data/" will work, but the value "$Root/source/data" is not acceptable). You do not need to set ICU_DATA if the complete data library is in your library path.
Installing ICU NOTE: If you are using the "gmake install" command, using the "--prefix" option on configure or runConfigureICU will install ICU to the specified location.
Some platforms use package management tools to control the installation and uninstallation of files on the system, as well as the integrity of the system configuration. You may want to check if ICU can be packaged for your package management tools by looking into the "packaging" directory. (Please note that if you are using a snapshot of ICU from CVS, it is probable that the packaging scripts or related files are not up to date with the contents of ICU at this time, so use them with caution).
If you are building on the OS/390 UNIX System Services platform, it is important that you understand a few details:
OS/390 supports both native S/390 hexadecimal floating point and,
(with Version 2.6 and later) IEEE binary floating point. This is a
compile time option. Applications built with IEEE should use ICU dlls
that are built with IEEE (and vice versa). The environment variable
IEEE390=1 will cause the OS/390 version of ICU to be built with IEEE
floating point. The default is native hexadecimal floating point.
Important: Currently (ICU 1.4.2), native floating point
support is sufficient for codepage conversion, resource bundle and
UnicodeString operations, but the Format APIs, especially ChoiceFormat,
require IEEE binary floating point.
Examples for configuring ICU:
Debug build: IEEE390=1 ./runConfigureICU --enable-debug
zOS/cxx
Release build: IEEE390=1 ./runConfigureICU zOS/cxx
By default, ICU builds its libraries into the HFS. However, there is a 390-specific switch to build some libraries into PDS files. The switch is the environmental variable OS390BATCH, and if set, the following libraries are built into PDS files: libicuucXX.dll, libicudtXXe.dll, libicudtXXe_390.dll, and libtestdata.dll. Turning on OS390BATCH does not turn off the normal HFS build, thus the HFS dlls will always be created.
The names of the PDS files are determined by the value of the environmental variables LOADMOD and LOADEXP. These variables must contain the target PDS names whenever the OS390BATCH variable is set. LOADMOD is the library (.dll) target dataset and LOADEXP is the side deck (.x) target dataset.
The PDS member names are as follows:
IXMIXXUC --> libicuucXX.dll IXMIXXDA --> libicudtXXe.dll IXMIXXD1 --> libicudtXXe_390.dll
Example PDS attributes are as follows:
Data Set Name . . . : USER.ICU.LOAD General Data Management class. . : **None** Storage class . . . : BASE Volume serial . . . : TSO007 Device type . . . . : 3390 Data class. . . . . : LOAD Organization . . . : PO Record format . . . : U Record length . . . : 0 Block size . . . . : 32760 1st extent cylinders: 40 Secondary cylinders : 59 Data set name type : PDS Data Set Name . . . : USER.ICU.EXP General Data Management class. . : **None** Storage class . . . : BASE Volume serial . . . : TSO007 Device type . . . . : 3390 Data class. . . . . : **None** Organization . . . : PO Record format . . . : FB Record length . . . : 80 Block size . . . . : 3200 1st extent cylinders: 3 Secondary cylinders : 3 Data set name type : PDS
ICU Reference Release 1.8.1 contains partial support for the 400 platform, but additional work by the user is currently needed to get it to build properly. A future release of ICU should work out-of-the-box under OS/400.
CRTLIB LIB(libraryname)
ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(ICU_DATA) VALUE('/icu/source/data') ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(CC) VALUE('/usr/bin/icc') ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(CXX) VALUE('/usr/bin/icc') ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(MAKE) VALUE('/usr/bin/gmake') ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(OUTPUTDIR) VALUE('libraryname')libraryname identifies target as400 library for *module, *pgm and *srvpgm objects.
DSPSYSVAL SYSVAL(QUTCOFFSET)
CHGSYSVAL SYSVAL(QUTCOFFSET) VALUE('-0800')You should change -0800 to -0700 for daylight savings.
If you are building on the Win32 platform, it is important that you understand a few of the following build details.
As delivered, the International Components for Unicode build as several DLLs, which are placed in the "<ICU>\bin" directory. You must add this directory to the PATH environment variable in your system, or any executables you build will not be able to access International Components for Unicode libraries. Alternatively, you can copy the DLL files into a directory already in your PATH, but we do not recommend this. You can wind up with multiple copies of the DLL and wind up using the wrong one.
Note: When packaging a Windows application for distribution and installation on user systems, copies of the ICU DLLs should be included with the application, and installed for exclusive use by the application. This is the only way to insure that your app is running with the same version of ICU, built with exactly the same options, that you developed and tested with. Refer to Microsoft's guidelines on the usage of DLLs, or search for the phrase "DLL hell" on msdn.microsoft.com.
All the DLLs link with the C runtime library "Debug Multithreaded DLL"
or "Multithreaded DLL." (This is changed through the Project Settings
dialog, on the C/C++ tab, under Code Generation.) It is important that any
executable or other DLL you build which uses the International Components
for Unicode DLLs links with these runtime libraries as well. If you do not
do this, you will get random memory errors when you run the executable.
If you are building on a Unix platform, and if you are installing ICU in a non-standard location, you may need to add the location of your ICU libraries to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable (or the equivalent runtime library path environment variable for your system). The ICU libraries may not link or load properly without doing this.
Note that if you do not want to have to set this variable, you may instead use the --enable-rpath option at configuration time. This option will instruct the linker to always look for the libraries where they are installed. You will need to use the appropriate linker options when linking your own applications and libraries against ICU, too. Please refer to your system's linker manual for information about runtime paths. The use of rpath also means that when building a new version of ICU you should not have an older version installed in the same place as the new version's installation directory, as the older libraries will used during the build, instead of the new ones, likely leading to an incorrectly build ICU. (This is the proper behavior of rpath.)
ICU has code to determine the default codepage of the system or process.
This default codepage can be used to convert char *
strings to
and from Unicode.
Depending on system design, setup and APIs, it may not always be possible to find a default codepage that fully works as expected. For example,
char *
encodings there are two classes, called "ANSI" and "OEM" codepages. ICU
will use the ANSI codepage. Note that the OEM codepage is used by default
for console window output.If you have means of detecting a default codepage name that are more
appropriate for your application, then you should set that name with
ucnv_setDefaultName()
as the first ICU function call. This
makes sure that the internally cached default converter will be
instantiated from your preferred name.
Starting in ICU 2.0, when a converter for the default codepage cannot be opened, a fallback default codepage name and converter will be used. On most platforms, this will be US-ASCII. For OS/390 (z/OS), ibm-1047-s390 is the default fallback codepage. For AS/400 (iSeries), ibm-37 is the default fallback codepage. This default fallback codepage is used when the operating system is using a non-standard name for a default codepage, or the converter was not packaged with ICU. The feature allows ICU to run in unusual computing environments without completely failing.
Some deprecated C APIs can be enabled without recompiling the ICU libraries. This can be achieved by defining certain symbols before including the ICU header files. For example, to enable deprecated C APIs for formatting.
#ifndef U_USE_DEPRECATED_FORMAT_API # define U_USE_DEPRECATED_FORMAT_API 1 #endif #include "unicode/udat.h" int main(){ UDateFormat *def, *fr, *fr_pat ; UErrorCode status = U_ZERO_ERROR; UChar temp[30]; fr = udat_open(UDAT_FULL, UDAT_DEFAULT, "fr_FR", NULL,0, &status); if(U_FAILURE(status)){ printf("Error creating the french dateformat using full time style\n %s\n", myErrorName(status) ); } /* This is supposed to open default date format, but later on it treats it like it is "en_US". This is very bad when you try to run the tests on a machine where the default locale is NOT "en_US" */ def = udat_open(UDAT_SHORT, UDAT_SHORT, "en_US", NULL, 0, &status); if(U_FAILURE(status)){ .... /* handle the error */ } }
Deprecated C++ APIs cannot be enabled without recompiling ICU libraries. Every service has a specific symbol that should be defined to enable the deprecated API of that service. For example: To enable deprecated APIs in transliteration service, the U_USE_DEPRECATED_TRANSLITERATOR_API symbol should be defined before compiling ICU.
The platform dependencies have been mostly isolated into the following files in the common library. This information can be useful if you are porting ICU to a new platform.
It is possible to build each library individually. They must be built in
the following order:
Copyright © 1997-2002 International Business Machines Corporation
and others. All Rights Reserved.
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All rights reserved.