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<title>ReadMe for ICU</title>
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<div class=Section1>
<h2>ReadMe: International Components for Unicode</h2>
<p>Version: February 1, 2000</p>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>
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<p>COPYRIGHT: <br>
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 International Business Machines Corporation and others.
All Rights Reserved.</p>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>
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<p><br>
</p>
<h3><u>Contents</u></h3>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#WhatContain">What
the International Components for Unicode Contain</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#API">API overview</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a
href="#PlatformDependencies">Platform Dependencies</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#ImportantNotes">Important
Installation Notes</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#HowToInstall">How
to Install/Build</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#datahandling">How
ICU handles data</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#CharsetConvert">Character
Set Conversion Information</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#ProgrammingNotes">Programming
Notes</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#WhereToFindMore">Where
to Find More Information</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list .5in'><a href="#SubmittingComments">Submitting
Comments, Requesting Features and Reporting Bugs</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><a name=introduction></a><u>Introduction</u></h3>
<p>Today's software market is a global one in which it is desirable to develop
and maintain one application that supports a wide variety of national
languages. International Components for Unicode provides the following tools to
help you write language independent applications: </p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>UnicodeString supporting the
Unicode 3.0 standard</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Resource bundles for storing
and accessing localized information</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Number formatters for
converting binary numbers into text strings for meaningful display</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Date and time formatters for
converting internal time data into text strings for meaningful display</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Message formatters for
putting together sequences of strings, numbers dates and other format to
create messages</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Text collation supporting
language sensitive comparison of strings</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Text boundary analysis for
finding characters, word and sentence boundaries</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Changing simple data files
rather than modifying program code easily localizes applications written
using these tools</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l5 level1 lfo6;tab-stops:list .5in'>Over 150 locales supported.
Visit <a
href="http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/localeexplorer">LocaleExplorer
(http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/localeexplorer)</a>
site for a demonstration and a full list of supported locales or <a
href="docs/supp_loc.html">click here for a table of supported locales</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>It is possible to support additional locales by adding more locale data
files, with no code changes. </p>
<p>Please refer to POSIX programmer's Guide for details on what the ISO locale
ID means. </p>
<p>Your comments are important to making this release successful. We are
committed to fixing any bugs, and will also use your feedback to help plan
future releases. </p>
<p style='margin-right:.5in;margin-left:.5in'><b><u>IMPORTANT</u>: Please make
sure you understand the <a href="license.html">Copyright and License
information</a>.</b></p>
<p style='margin-right:.5in;margin-left:.5in'> </p>
<h3><a name=WhatContain></a><u>What the International Components for Unicode
Contain</u></h3>
<p>There are two ways to download the ICU releases, </p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l10 level1 lfo9;tab-stops:list .5in'><strong>Official Release
Snapshot:</strong><b><br>
</b>If you want to use ICU (as opposed to developing it), your best bet is
to download an official, packaged ICU version of the ICU source
code. These versions are tested more thoroughly than day-to-day
development builds of the system, and they are packaged in zip and tar
files for convenient download. These packaged files can be found at <a
href="http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/download/index.html">http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/download/index.html</a>.<br>
If packaged snapshot is named <b>ICUXXXXXX.zip </b>, XXXXXX is the release
version number.<br>
Please unzip this file. It will re-construct the source directory. </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l10 level1 lfo9;tab-stops:list .5in'><strong>CVS Source
Repository:</strong><b><br>
</b>If you are interested in developing features, patches, or bug fixes
for ICU, you should probably be working with the latest version of the ICU
source code. You will need to check the code out of our CVS repository to
ensure that you have the most recent version of all of the files. There
are several ways to do this:</li>
<ul type=circle>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l10 level2 lfo9;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>WebCVS:<br>
If you want to browse the code and only make occasional downloads, you
may want to use WebCVS. It provides a convenient, web-based interface for
browsing and downloading the latest version of the ICU source code and
documentation. You can also view each file's revision history, display
the differences between individual revisions, determine which revisions
were part of which official release, and so on. </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l10 level2 lfo9;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>WinCVS:<br>
If you will be doing serious work on ICU, you should probably install a
CVS client on your own machine so that you can do batch operations
without going through the WebCVS interface. On Windows, we suggest the
WinCVS client. The following is the example instruction on how to download
ICU via WinCVS: <br>
1.Install the WinCVS client, which you can download from the WinCVS home
page. <br>
2.In the WinCVS preferences, specify your CVSRoot to be
":pserver:anoncvs@oss.software.ibm.com:/usr/cvs/icu"<br>
with the password "anoncvs". To enter the CVSRoot value, select
"Preferences" from the "Cvs Admin" pull-down menu.
Authentication should be set to "'passwd' file on the
cvs server". <br>
3.To "extract" the most recent version of ICU, select
"Checkout module" from the "Cvs Admin" menu. Specify
"icu" for the module name. </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l10 level2 lfo9;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>CVS command line:<br>
You can also check out the repository anonymously on UNIX using the
following commands, after first setting your CVSROOT to point to the ICU
repository: <br>
<br>
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs@oss.software.ibm.com:/usr/cvs/icu<br>
cvs login CVS password: anoncvs<br>
cvs checkout icu<br>
cvs logout</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>For more details on how to download ICU directly from the web site, please
also see <a
href="http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/download/index.html">http:/oss.software.ibm.com/icu/download/index.html</a></p>
<p>Below, <b>$Root</b> is the placement of the icu directory in your file
system, like "drive:\...\icu" in your environment.
"drive:\..." stands for any drive and any directory on that drive
that you chose to install icu into.</p>
<p><b>The following files describe the code drop:</b> <br>
<br>
</p>
<table border=1 cellpadding=0 style='mso-cellspacing:1.5pt;mso-padding-alt:
0in 0in 0in 0in'>
<tr>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>readme.html (this file)</p>
</td>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>describes the International Components for Unicode</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>license.html</p>
</td>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>contains IBM's public license</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><b>The following directories contain source code and data files:</b> <br>
<br>
</p>
<table border=1 cellpadding=0 width=623 style='width:467.25pt;mso-cellspacing:
1.5pt;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in'>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root\source\common\</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>The utility classes, such as ResourceBundle, Unicode,
Locale, UnicodeString. The codepage conversion library API, UnicodeConverter.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root\source\i18n\</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>The collation source files, Collator, RuleBasedCollator
and CollationKey. <br>
The text boundary API, which locates character, word, sentence, and <br>
line breaks. <br>
The format API, which formats and parses data in numeric or date format to
and from text.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root\source\test\intltest\</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>A test suite including all C++ APIs. For information about
running the test suite, see <a href="docs/intltest.html">docs/intltest.html</a>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root/source/test/cintltst/</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>A test suite including all C APIs. For information about
running the test suite, see <a href="docs/cintltst.html">docs/cintltst.html.</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root/data/</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Unicode 3.0 data file. Please see <a
href="http://www.unicode.org/">http://www.unicode.org/</a> for more
information. <br>
This directory also contains the resource files for all international
objects. These files are of three types: </p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>TXT files contain
general locale data. </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>RES files contain
non-portable locale data files which are generated by the <strong>genrb</strong>
tool.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>COL files are non-portable
packed binary collation data files which are created by the <strong>gencol</strong>
tool. </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>UCM files which
contain mapping tables {from,to} Unicode in text format</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>CNV files are
non-portable packed binary conversion data generated by the <strong>makeconv</strong>
tool.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>icudata.dll file
contains data files in a dynamic loadable library format. At this
moment, this file contains CNV files, converter aliases, timezone data
and Unicode character names. Please read <a href="docs/udata.html">udata.html</a>
for more information.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l12 level1 lfo12;tab-stops:list .5in'>icudata.dat file
contains data files in a memory mapped file format. At this moment, this
file contains CNV files, converter aliases, timezone data and Unicode
character names. Please read <a href="docs/udata.html">udata.html</a>
for more information.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root/source/tools</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>Tools for generating the data files. Data files are
generated by invoking $Root/source/tools/makedata.bat on Win32 or
$Root/source/make install on Unix.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" style='width:20.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root/source/samples</p>
</td>
<td width="80%" style='width:80.0%;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>Various sample programs that use ICU</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p> <b>The following directories are populated when you've built the
framework:</b> <br>
(on Unix, replace $Root with the value given to the file
"configure") <br>
</p>
<table border=1 cellpadding=0 style='mso-cellspacing:1.5pt;mso-padding-alt:
0in 0in 0in 0in'>
<tr>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$Root/include/</p>
</td>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>contains all the public header files.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>$output</p>
</td>
<td style='padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal>contains the libraries for static/dynamic linking or
executable programs.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><b>The following diagram shows the main directory structure of the
International Components for Unicode:</b> </p>
<pre> icu-NNNN</pre>
<pre> |</pre>
<pre> output <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>icu</pre>
<pre> _____|_____<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>______________|______________________________</pre>
<pre> | <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>| <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>| <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> | | <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> |<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|</pre>
<pre> libraries<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>programs include data source |<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|</pre>
<pre> (built)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(built)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(built) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> | readme.html license.html</pre>
<pre> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> |<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></pre>
<pre> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>_________________|__________________________</pre>
<pre> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> | |<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|</pre>
<pre> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>common<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>i18n <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>test<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>extra<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>tools<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>samples</pre>
<pre> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></pre>
<pre> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> ___|___ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>___|_________________</pre>
<pre><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>|<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>| </pre>
<pre><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>intltest cintltst makeconv ctestfw genrb<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>....</pre>
<h3><a name=API></a><u>API Overview</u></h3>
<p>In the International Components for Unicode, there are two categories: </p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l15 level1 lfo15;tab-stops:list .5in'>Low-level Unicode/Resource
Attributes: (<strong>icuuc</strong> library)</li>
<ul type=circle>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l15 level2 lfo15;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><a
href="docs/utilCL.html">Utility Classes</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l15 level2 lfo15;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><a
href="docs/conversion_interface.htm">Conversion Interface</a></li>
</ul>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l15 level1 lfo15;tab-stops:list .5in'>High-level Unicode
Internationalization: (<strong>icui18n</strong> library)</li>
<ul type=circle>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l15 level2 lfo15;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><a
href="docs/boundCL.html">Text Boundary Classes</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l15 level2 lfo15;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><a
href="docs/collateCL.html">Collation Classes</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l15 level2 lfo15;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><a
href="docs/formatCL.html">Formatting Classes</a></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l15 level2 lfo15;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>Transliterator
Classes</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>See <A HREF="http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/develop/codestds.html">International Components for Unicode Coding Guidelines</A>
for a discussion of code conventions common to all library classes. </p>
<p>See also <a href="../html/aindex.html">html/aindex.html</a> for an alphabetical
index, and <a href="../html/HIERjava.html">html/HIERjava.html</a> for a
hierarchical index to detailed API documentation. <br>
<br>
</p>
<h3><a name=PlatformDependencies></a><u>Platform Dependencies</u></h3>
<p>The platform dependencies have been isolated into the following 4 files: </p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l14 level1 lfo18;tab-stops:list .5in'><u>platform.h.in:</u>
Platform-dependent typedefs and defines:</li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l13 level1 lfo20;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>XP_CPLUSPLUS is defined for C++</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l13 level1 lfo20;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>bool_t, TRUE and FALSE, int8_t, int16_t etc.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l13 level1 lfo20;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>U_EXPORT and U_IMPORT for specifying dynamic library
import and export</p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l6 level1 lfo23;tab-stops:list .5in'><u>putil.c:</u>
platform-dependent implementations of various functions that are platform
dependent: (declared in putil.h)</li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo25;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>icu_isNaN, icu_isInfinite(double), icu_getNaN();
icu_getInfinity for handling special floating point values</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo25;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>icu_tzset, icu_timezone, icu_tzname and time for
reading platform specific time and timezone information</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo25;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>icu_getDefaultDataDirectory, icu_getDefaultLocaleID for
reading the locale setting and data directory</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo25;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>icu_isBigEndian for finding the endianess of the
platform</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:.5in;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo25;tab-stops:
list .5in'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'><3E><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></span><![endif]>icu_nextDouble is used specifically by the ChoiceFormat
API.</p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l7 level1 lfo28;tab-stops:list .5in'><u>mutex.h and mutex.cpp</u>:
Code for doing synchronization in multithreaded applications. If you wish
to use International Components for Unicode in a multithreaded
application, you must provide a synchronization primitive that the classes
can use to protect their global data against simultaneous modifications.
See <a href="docs/mutex.html">docs/mutex.html</a> for more information.</li>
<ul type=circle>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l7 level2 lfo28;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>We supply sample
implementations for WinNT, Win95, Win98, Sun/Solaris, RedHat/Linux, HP-UX
and for AIX on an RS/6000.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l7 level2 lfo28;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>If you are changing
the platform-dependent files, ptypes.h and putil.h may also be interesting,
but shouldn't have to be changed. If you think any other files than the
ones mentioned above have platform dependencies, please contact us.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l7 level2 lfo28;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>For the Intltest test
suite, intltest.cpp in "icu\source\test\intltest\" contains the
method pathnameInContext, which must also be adapted to any new platform.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l14 level1 lfo18;tab-stops:list .5in'>udata.h: The data-accessing
interface in ICU is implemented such that there is a lot of flexibility
for reading a data file.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Each
platform can tune the performance of file accessing for its environment by
choosing to implement one of the following options:</li>
</ul>
<ul type=disc>
<ul type=circle>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l7 level2 lfo28;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>DLL</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l7 level2 lfo28;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>Memory map</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l7 level2 lfo28;tab-stops:list 1.0in'>Plain text </li>
</ul>
</ul>
<h3><a name=ImportantNotes></a><u>Important Installation Notes </u></h3>
<p><strong>Win32 Platform</strong></p>
<p>If you are building on the Win32 platform, it is important that you
understand a few build details: </p>
<p><u>DLL directories and the PATH setting:</u> As delivered, the International
Components for Unicode build as several DLLs. These DLLs are placed in the
directories "icu\bin\Debug" and "icu\bin\Release".
You must add either of these directories 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. </p>
<p><u>To change your PATH:</u> Do this under NT by using the System
control panel. Pick the "Environment" tab, select the variable PATH
in the lower box. In the "value" box, append the string
";drive:\...\icu\bin\Debug" at the end of the path string. If
there is nothing there, just type in "drive:\...\icu\bin\Debug".
Click the Set button, then the Ok button. </p>
<p><u>Link with Runtime libraries:</u> 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 seemingly get memory
errors when you run the executable. <br>
</p>
<p><a name=OS390><strong>OS/390 Platform</strong></p>
<p>If you are building on the OS/390 UNIX System Services platform, it is
important that you understand a few details:</p>
<ul>
<li>The gnu utilities gmake and gzip/gunzip are needed and can be obtained for
OS/390 from <a href="http://www.mks.com/">http://www.mks.com/</a>.
Search for OS/390, register, and follow download directions.</li>
<li>Encoding considerations: The source code assumes that it is compiled
with codepage 1047 (to be exact, the UNIX System Services variant of it).
The pax command converts all of the source code files from ASCII
to codepage 1047 (USS) EBCDIC. However, some files are binary files
and must not be converted, or must be converted back to their original
state.
Those files are:<ul>
<li>All the .brk files located in the icu/data directory (icu/data/*.brk)</li>
<li>icu/source/test/testdata/uni-text.txt</li>
<li>icu/source/test/testdata/th18057.txt</li>
</ul>
Such a conversion can be done using iconv:<br>
<code>iconv -f IBM-1047 -t ISO8859-1 uni-text.txt > uni-text.txt</code></li>
<li>DLL directories and the LIBPATH setting:
Building and testing ICU needs the ICU libraries on the LIBPATH.
In other words, the LIBPATH should contain
(each path prepended with the root directory that contains the icu directory):
<ul>
<li>icu/source/common</li>
<li>icu/source/i18n</li>
<li>icu/source/tools/ctestfw</li>
<li>icu/source/tools/toolutil</li>
<li>icu/source/extra/ustdio</li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>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.<br>
<em>Important: </em>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.</p>
<p>Examples for configuring ICU:<br>
Debug build: <code>IEEE390=1 ./configure</code><br>
Release build: <code>CFLAGS=-2 IEEE390=1 ./configure</code></p></li>
<li>The makedep executable that is used with the OS/390 ICU build
process is not shipped with ICU. It is available at the
<a href="http://www.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/bpxa1ty2.html">OS/390 UNIX - Tools and Toys</a>
site. The PATH
environment variable should be updated to contain the location of this
executable prior to build.
Alternatively, makedep may be moved into an existing PATH directory.</li>
<li>When running the test suite, the TZ environment variable should be set to
export TZ="PST8PDT" so
that time zone comparisons are correct.</li>
</ul>
<p><a name=OS400><strong>OS/400 Platform</strong></a></p>
ICU Reference Release 1.4.0 contains partial support for the 400
platform, but additional work by the user is currently needed to get
it to build completely.
A future release of the ICU should work out-of-the-box
under OS/400.
<UL>
<LI> Requirements:
<UL>
<LI> QSHELL interpreter installed (install base option 30, operating
system)
<LI> QShell Utilities, PRPQ 5799-XEH
<LI> ILE C++ for AS/400, PRPQ 5799-GDW
<LI> GNU facilities (the gnu facilities are currently available by request only. Send e-mail to <A HREF="mailto:rchasgo400@us.ibm.com">rchasgo400@us.ibm.com</A> )
<P></UL> <!-- end requirements -->
<LI> Build environment setup:
<OL>
<LI> Create AS400 target library. This library will be the target for the
resulting modules, programs and service programs. You will specify this
library on the OUTPUTDIR environment variable in step 2.
<LI> Set up the following environment variables in your build process (use
ADDENVVAR or WRKENVVAR CL commands)
<UL>
CC - '/usr/bin/icc'<BR>
CXX - ' /usr/bin/icc'<BR>
MAKE - '/usr/bin/gmake'<BR>
OUTPUTDIR - <I>identifies target as400 library for *module, *pgm and
*srvpgm objects</I>
<P></UL>
<LI> Add QCXXN, to your build process library list. This results in the
resolution of CRTCPPMOD used by the icc compiler
<LI> Configure the Makefiles (see configure below) Note: Verify that the
mh-os400 configure file is used.
<UL>
<LI> Run 'configure --host=as400-os400'
<LI> Change the TARGET entries in
<TT>common/Makefile.in, i18n/Makefile.in, tools/toolutil/Makefile.in </TT> so that instead
of <TT>TARGET=<U>libicu-</U>uc.$(SO)</TT> they read
<TT>TARGET=<B>$(LIBICU)</B>uc.$(SO)</TT> [remove hyphens]
<LI> Change Makefile.in's (under source/tools) that have
LIBICU-TOOLUTIL so that it follows the other LIBICU variables on
the link line:
<TT>$(LIBICU-UC) $(LIBICU-TOOLUTIL) @LIBS@ @LIB_M@</TT>
<LI> The 'clean' and 'install' targets will not work without changes
because of symbolic links. To delete the target module, program, or service programs replace <TT>rm -rf</TT> with <B>$(RMV)</B>, and in the
library installation targets (install-library) change
<TT>$(INSTALL)</TT> to <B><TT>$(INSTALL-S)</TT></B>.
<P></UL>
<LI> gmake -e (-e to pickup the compilers)
<P></OL> <!-- end build environment -->
</UL>
Note on NULL pointer checks:
<UL>
In common/ucnv.c and common/unistr.c (search for U_MAX_PTR), there are
additional checks for NULL pointers. This is because pointer
comparison works differently on the AS/400 architecture.
</UL>
<h3><a name=HowToInstall></a><u>How to Install/Build on Win NT</u></h3>
<p>Building International Components for Unicode requires: </p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l16 level1 lfo31;tab-stops:list .5in'>Microsoft NT 3.51 or above</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l16 level1 lfo31;tab-stops:list .5in'>Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0
(Service Pack 2 is required to work with the release build of max speed
optimization).</li>
</ul>
<p>The steps are: </p>
<ol start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Unzip the icu-XXXX.zip
file, type "unzip -a icu-XXXX.zip -d drive:\directory" under
command prompt or use WinZip. drive:\directory\icu is the root
($Root) directory (you may but don't need to place "icu" into another
directory). If you change the root, you will change the project settings
accordingly in EACH makefile in the project, updating the "include"
and "library" paths.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Set the environment
variable <strong>ICU_DATA</strong>, the full pathname of the data
directory, to indicate where the locale data files and conversion mapping
tables are.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Start Microsoft Visual C++
6.0.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Choose "File"
menu and select "Open WorkSpace".</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>In the file chooser, choose
icu\source\allinone\allinone.dsw. Open this workspace.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>This workspace includes all
the International Components for Unicode libraries, necessary tools as
well as intltest and cintltest test suite projects.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Set the active Project.
Choose "Project" menu and select "Set active project".
In the submenu, select "all" workspace.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Set the active
configuration ("Win32 Debug" or "Win32 Release") and
make sure this matches your PATH setting as described in the previous
chapter. (See note below.)</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Choose "Build"
menu and select "Rebuild All". 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".</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>The "all"
workspace will build all the test programs as well as the tools for
generating binary locale data files. The "makedata"
project will be run automatically to convert the locale data files from
text format into icudata.dll.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Save the value of the <strong>TZ</strong>
environment variable and then set it to <strong>PST8PDT</strong>. </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Reopen the
"allinone" project file and run the "intltest" test.
Reset the <strong>TZ</strong> value.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>To run the C test suite,
set "cintltst" as the active project, repeat steps 11 and then
run the "cintltst" test..</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l11 level1 lfo34;tab-stops:list .5in'>Build and run as outlined
above.</li>
</ol>
<p><b>Note: </b>To set the active configuration, two different possibilities are:
</p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l4 level1 lfo37;tab-stops:list .5in'>Choose "Build"
menu, select "Set Active Configuration", and select "Win32
Release" or "Win32 Debug".</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l4 level1 lfo37;tab-stops:list .5in'>Another way is to select
"Customize" in the "Tools" menu, select the
"Toolbars" tab, enable "Build" instead of "Build
Minibar", and click on "Close". This will bring up a
toolbar which you can move aside the other permanent toolbars at the top
of the MSVC window. The advantage is that you now have an easy-to-reach
pop-up menu that will always show the currently selected active
configuration. Or, you can drag the project and configuration selections
and drop them on the menu bar for later selection.</li>
</ul>
<p>It is also possible to build each library individually, using the workspaces
in each respective directory. They have to be built in the following order: <br>
1. common <br>
2. i18n <br>
3. makedata (which invokes makeconv,
genrb, gencol, genccode etc.)<br>
4. ctestfw <br>
5. intltest and cintltst, if you
want to run the test suite. <br>
Regarding the test suite, please read the directions in <a
href="docs/intltest.html">docs/intltest.html</a> and <a
href="docs/cintltst.html">docs/cintltst.html</a> </p>
<h3>How to Install/Build on Unix</h3>
<p>There is a set of Makefiles for Unix that supports Linux w/gcc, Solaris
w/gcc and Workshop CC, AIX w/xlc and OS/390 with C++.</p>
<p>Building International Components for Unicode on Unix requires: </p>
<p>A UNIX C++ compiler, (gcc, cc, xlc_r, etc...) installed on the target
machine. A recent version of GNU make (3.7+). OS/390 gnu utilities
for both make (gmake) and zip (gzip/gunzip) can be found at the MKS web site at
<a href="http://www.mks.com">http://www.mks.com</a>. Please do a search
on "os/390".</p>
<p>The steps are: </p>
<ol start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Unzip the icuXXXX.tar (or
icuXXXX.tgz) file.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Before running the test programs
or samples, please set the environment variable <strong>ICU_DATA</strong>,
the full pathname of the data directory, to indicate where the locale data
files and conversion mapping tables are. If this variable is not
set, the default user data directory will be used.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Change directory to the
"icu/source".</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>If it is not already set,
please set the executable flag for the following files (by executing
'chmod +x' command): configure, install.sh and config.*, </li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>You also need to set other
environment variables for different build systems. Use this <a
href="docs/build_env.htm">table</a> or provided <a
href="source/runConfigureICU">script</a>.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Type "./configure"
or type "./configure --help" to print the available options.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Type "make" to compile
the libraries and all the data files. On OS/390, both IEEE binary
floating point and native S/390 hexadecimal floating point calculations
are supported. The default is to build with native floating-point
support. Please set the environment variable IEEE390=1 if you would
like to make the ICU DLLs with IEEE floating point support.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Optionally, type "make
check" to verify the test suite.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l2 level1 lfo40;tab-stops:list .5in'>Type "Make
install" to install.</li>
</ol>
<p>It is also possible to build each library individually, using the Makefiles
in each respective directory. They have to be built in the following order: <br>
1. common <br>
2. i18n <br>
3. makeconv <br>
4. genrb<br>
5. gencol<br>
6. gentz<br>
7. genccode<br>
8. ctestfw <br>
9. intltest and cintltst, if you
want to run the test suite. <br>
Regarding the test suite, please read the directions in <a
href="docs/intltest.html">docs/intltest.html</a> and <a
href="docs/cintltst.html">docs/cintltst.html</a> </p>
<h1><a name=datahandling>How ICU handles data</a></h1>
<span style='mso-bookmark:datahandling'></span>
<h3><u>How to add a locale data file</u></h3>
<p>To add locale data files to International Components for Unicode do the
following: </p>
<p style='margin-right:.5in;margin-left:.5in'>1. Create a file containing the
key-value pairs which value you are overriding from the parent locale data
file. <br>
Make sure the filename is the locale ID with the extension
".txt". We recommend you copy parent file and change the values <br>
that need to be changed, remove all other key-pairs. Be sure
to update the locale ID key (the outmost brace) with <br>
the name of the locale id your a creating.</p>
<p style='margin-right:.5in;margin-left:.5in'>2. Name the file with locale ID
you are creating with a ".txt" at the end.</p>
<p style='margin-right:1.0in;margin-left:1.0in'>e.g.
fr_BF.txt <br>
Would create a locale that inherits all the key-value pairs from fr.txt.</p>
<p style='margin-right:.5in;margin-left:.5in'>3. Add the name of that file
(without the ".txt" extension) as a single line in
"index.txt" file in the default locale directory (icu/data/).</p>
<p style='margin-right:.5in;margin-left:.5in'>4. Regenerate the data DLL
file. Please see "<a href="#HowToInstall">How to Install</a>"
section for more details on how to verify the ICU release.</p>
<p><a name=addrbdatatoapp></a><b><u><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>How to add
resource bundle data to your application</span></u></b> </p>
<p>Adding resource bundle data to your application is quite simple: </p>
<p>Create resource bundle files with the right format and names in a directory
for resource bundles you create in your application directory tree.(for more
information of that format of these files see <a
href="../icuhtml/ResourceBundle.html#DOC.DOCU">resource bundle documentation</a>
or <a
href="http://www.ibm.com/java/education/international-unicode/unicodec.html">resource
bundle format)</a>. <br>
Please note that resource bundle tag names should contain only invariant 7-bit
ASCII characters (e.g. ones from the following set: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, <SP>,
", %, &, `, (, ), *, +, ,, -, ., /, :, ;, <, =, >, ?, _).<br>
Use that same directory name (absolute path) when instantiating a resource
bundle at run time.</p>
<h3><a name=WhereCollation></a><u>Where Collation Data is stored</u></h3>
<p>Collation data is stored in a single directory on a local disk. Each
locale's data is stored in a corresponding ASCII text file indicated by a
"CollationElements" tag . For instance, the data for de_CH is stored
with a tag "CollationElements" in a file named "de_CH.txt".
Reading the collation data from these files can be time-consuming, especially
for large pieces of data that occur in languages such as Japanese. For this
reason, the Collation Framework implements a second file format, a
performance-optimized, non-portable, binary format. These binary files are
generated automatically by the framework the first time a collation table is
parsed. They have names of the form "de_CH.col". Once the files are
generated by the framework, future loading of those collations occur from the
binary file, rather than the text file, at much higher speed. </p>
<p>In general, you don't have to do anything special with these files. They can
be generated directly by using the "gencol" tool. In addition,
they can also be generated and used automatically by the framework, without
intervention on your part. However, there are situations in which you will have
to regenerate them. To do so, you must manually delete the ".col"
files from your collation data directory and re-run the gencol tool.</p>
<p>You will need to regenerate your ".col" files in the following
circumstances: </p>
<ol start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo43;tab-stops:list .5in'>You are moving your data to
another platform. Since the ".col" files are non-portable,
you must make sure they are regenerated.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo43;tab-stops:list .5in'><b>DO NOT </b>copy them from
one platform to another.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo43;tab-stops:list .5in'>You have changed the
"CollationElements" data in the locale's ".txt"
file. Note that if you change the default rules for some reason,
which underlie all collations, then you will have to rebuild ALL your
".col" files, since they all are merged with the default rule
set.</li>
</ol>
<h3><a name=CharsetConvert></a><u>Character Set Conversion Information</u></h3>
<p>The charset conversion library provides ways to convert simple text strings
(e.g., char*) such as ISO 8859-1 to and from Unicode. The objective is to
provide clean, simple, reliable, portable and adaptable data structures and
algorithms to support the International Components for Unicode's character
codeset Conversion APIs. The conversion data in the library originated from the
NLTC lab in IBM. The IBM character set conversion tables are publicly available
in the published IBM document called "CHARACTER DATA REPRESENTATION
ARCHITECTURE - REFERENCE AND REGISTRY". The character set conversion
library includes single-byte, double-byte and some UCS encodings to and from Unicode.
This document can be ordered through Mechanicsberg and it comes with 2 CD ROMs
which have machine-readable conversion tables on them. The license agreement is
included in International Components for Unicode agreement. </p>
<p>Click <a href="data/convrtrs.txt">here</a> to view converters implemented in
ICU. To see converters in action, please visit <a
href="http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/localeexplorer/?converter&">
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/localeexplorer/?converter&</a></p>
<p>To order the document in the US you can call 1-800-879-2755 and request
document number SC09-2190-00. The cost of this publication is $75.00 US not
including tax. </p>
<h3><a name=ProgrammingNotes></a><u>Programming Notes</u></h3>
<h4><u>Reporting Errors</u></h4>
<p>In order for the code to be portable, only a subset of the C++ language that
will compile correctly on even the oldest of C++ compilers (and also to provide
a usable C interface) can be used in the implementation, which means that
there's no use the C++ exception mechanism in the code. </p>
<p>After considering many alternatives, the decision was that every function
that can fail takes an error-code parameter by reference. This is always the
last parameter in the function’s parameter list. The ErrorCode type is defined
as a enumerated type. Zero represents no error, positive values represent
errors, and negative values represent non-error status codes. Macros were
provided, SUCCESS and FAILURE, to check the error code. </p>
<p>The ErrorCode parameter is an input-output parameter. Every function tests
the error code before doing anything else, and immediately exits if it’s a
FAILURE error code. If the function fails later on, it sets the error code
appropriately and exits without doing any other work (except, of course, any
cleanup it has to do). If the function encounters a non-error condition it
wants to signal (such as "encountered an unmapped character" in
transcoding), it sets the error code appropriately and continues. Otherwise,
the function leaves the error code unchanged. </p>
<p>Generally, only functions that don’t take an ErrorCode parameter, but call
functions that do, have to declare one. Almost all functions that take an
ErrorCode parameter and also call other functions that do merely have to
propagate the error code they were passed down to the functions they call.
Functions that declare a new ErrorCode parameter must initialize it to
ZERO_ERROR before calling any other functions. </p>
<p>The rationale here is to allow a function to call several functions (that
take error codes) in a row without having to check the error code after each
one. [A function usually will have to check the error code before doing any
other processing, however, since it is supposed to stop immediately after
receiving an error code.] Propagating the error-code parameter down the call
chain saves the programmer from having to declare one everywhere, and also
allows us to more closely mimic the C++ exception protocol. </p>
<h4><u>C Function and Data Type Naming</u></h4>
<p><b>Function names.</b> If a function is identical (or almost identical) to
an ANSI or POSIX function, we give it the same name and (as much as possible)
the same parameter list. A "u" is prepended onto the beginning of the
name. </p>
<p>For functions that exist prior to version 1.2.1, that the function name
should begin with a lower-case "u". After the "u" is a
short code identifying the subsystem it belongs to (e.g., "loc",
"rb", "cnv", "coll", etc.). This code is
separated from the actual function name by an underscore, and the actual
function name can be anything. For example, </p>
<pre style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:
.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>UChar* uloc_getLanguage(...);<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>void uloc_setDefaultLocale(...);<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>UChar* ures_getString(...);</span></pre>
<p><b>Struct and enum type names.</b> For structs and enum types, the rule is
that their names begin with a capital "U." There is no underscore for
struct names.</p>
<pre><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> UResourceBundle;<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span
style='font-size:7.5pt'> UCollator;<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span
style='font-size:7.5pt'><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>UCollationResult;</span></pre>
<p><b>Enum value names.</b> Enumeration values have names that begin with
"UXXX" where XXX stands for the name of the functional category.</p>
<pre style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:
.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>UNUM_DECIMAL;<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>UCOL_GREATER;</span></pre>
<p><b>Macro names.</b> Macro names are in all caps, but there are currently no
other requirements. </p>
<p><b>Constant names.</b> Many constant names (constants defined with
"const", not macros defined with "#define" that are used as
constants) begin with a lowercase k, but this isn’t universally enforced. </p>
<h4><u>Preflighting and Overflow Handling</u></h4>
<p>In ICU's C APIs, the user needs to adhere to the following principles for
consistency across all functional categories: </p>
<ol start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l8 level1 lfo46;tab-stops:list .5in'>All the Unicode string
processing should be expressed in terms of a UChar* buffer that is always
null terminated.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l8 level1 lfo46;tab-stops:list .5in'>The APIs assume that the
input string parameters are statically allocated fix-sized character
buffers.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l8 level1 lfo46;tab-stops:list .5in'>When the value a function is
going to return is already stored as a constant value in static space
(e.g., it’s coming from a fixed table, or is stored in a cache), the
function will just return the const UChar* pointer.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l8 level1 lfo46;tab-stops:list .5in'>When the function can’t
return a UChar* to storage the user doesn’t have to delete, the caller
needs to pass in a pointer to a character buffer that the function can
fill with the result. This pointer needs to be accompanied by a int32_t
parameter that gives the size of the buffer.</li>
</ol>
<p>To find out how large the result buffer should be, ICU provides a <strong>preflighting</strong>
C interface. The interface works like this: </p>
<ol start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l9 level1 lfo49;tab-stops:list .5in'>When using the "<b>preflighting</b>"
option: you need to pass the function a NULL pointer for the buffer
pointer, and the function returns the actual size of the result. You can
then choose to allocate a buffer of the correct size and re-run the
operation if you would like to.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l9 level1 lfo49;tab-stops:list .5in'>After allocating a buffer of
some reasonable size on the stack and passes that to the function, if the
result can fit in that buffer, everything works fine. If the result
doesn’t fit, the function will return the actual size needed. You
can then allocate a buffer of the correct size on the heap and try calling
the same function again.</li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l9 level1 lfo49;tab-stops:list .5in'>Now you have created a
buffer of some reasonable size on the stack and passes it to the
function. If you don't care about the completeness of the result and
the allocated buffer is too small, you can continue on using the truncated
result.</li>
</ol>
<p>The following three options demonstrates how to use the preflighting
interface, </p>
<pre style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:
.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>/** <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> * @param result is a pointer to where the actual result will be.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> * @param maxResultSize is the number of characters the buffer pointed to be result has room for. <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> * @return The actual length of the result (counting the terminating null)<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> */<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>int32_t doSomething( /* input params */, UChar* result,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> int32_t maxResultSize, UErrorCode* err);</span></pre>
<p>In this sample, if the actual result doesn’t fit in the space available in <span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>maxResultSize</span>, this
function returns the amount of space necessary to hold the result, and result
holds as many characters of the actual result as possible. If you don’t care
about this, no further action is necessary. If you <i>do </i>care about the
truncated characters, you can then allocate a buffer on the heap of the size
specified by the return value and call the function again, passing <i>that </i>buffer’s
address for result. </p>
<p>All preflighting functions have a fill-in <span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Courier New"'>ErrorCode</span> parameter (and follow the normal <span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>ErrorCode</span> rules),
even if they are not currently doing so. Buffer overflow would be treated as a
FAILURE error condition, but would <i>not</i> be reported when the caller
passes in NULL for <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>actualResultSize</span>
(presumably, a NULL for this parameter means the client doesn’t care if he got
a buffer overflow). All other failing error conditions will overwrite the
"buffer overflow" error, e.g. <span style='font-family:"Courier New"'>MISSING_RESOURCE_ERROR</span>
etc..</p>
<h4><u>Arrays as return types</u></h4>
<p>Returning an array of strings is fairly easy in C++, but very hard in C.
Instead of returning the array pointer directly, we opted for an iterative
interface instead: split the function into two functions. One returns the
number of elements in the array, and the other one returns a single specified
element from the array.</p>
<pre style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:
.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>int32_t countArrayItems(/* params */);<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>int32_t getArrayElement(int32_t elementIndex, /* other params */,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> UChar* result, int32_t maxResultSize, UErrorCode* err);</span></pre>
<p>In this case, iterating across all the elements in the array would amount to
a call to the count() function followed by multiple calls to the getElement()
function. </p>
<pre style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:
.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>for (i = 0; i < countArrayItems(...); i++) {<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> UChar element[50];<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> getArrayItem(i, ..., element, 50, &err);<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> /* do something with element */<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>}</span></pre>
<p>In the case of the resource bundle <span style='font-family:"Courier New"'>ures_XXXX</span>
functions returning 2-dimensional arrays, the getElement() function takes both
x and y coordinates for the desired element, and the count() function returns
the number of arrays (x axis). Since the size of each array element in
the resource 2-D arrays should always be the same, this provides an easy-to-use
C interface. </p>
<pre style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:
.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>void countArrayItems(int32_t* rows, int32_t* columns,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> /* other params */);<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'>int32_t get2dArrayElement(int32_t rowIndex, <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> int32_t colIndex,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> /* other params */, <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> UChar* result, <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> int32_t maxResultSize,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre
style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:7.5pt'> UErrorCode* err);</span></pre>
<h3><a name=WhereToFindMore></a><u>Where to Find More Information</u></h3>
<p><a href="http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/">http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/</a>
is a pointer to general information about the International Components for
Unicode. </p>
<p><a href="docs/udata.html">docs/udata.html</a> is a raw draft of ICU data
handling.</p>
<p><a href="../icuhtml/aindex.html">html/aindex.html</a> is an alphabetical
index to detailed API documentation. <br>
<a href="../icuhtml/HIERjava.html">html/HIERjava.html</a> is a hierarchical
index to detailed API documentation. </p>
<p><a href="docs/collate.html">docs/collate.html</a> is an overview to
Collation. </p>
<p><a href="docs/BreakIterator.html">docs/BreakIterator.html</a> is a diagram
showing how BreakIterator processes text elements. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ibm.com/developer/unicode/">http://www.ibm.com/developer/unicode/</a> is a
pointer to information on how to make applications global. <br>
</p>
<h3><a name=SubmittingComments></a><u>Submitting Comments, Requesting Features
and Reporting Bugs</u></h3>
<p>To submit comments, request features and report bugs, please contact
us. While we are not able to respond individually to each comment, we do
review all comments. Send Internet email to <a
href="mailto:icu@oss.software.ibm.com">icu@oss.software.ibm.com</a>.</p>
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<p>Copyright <20> 1997-2000 International Business Machines Corporation and
others. All Rights Reserved.<br>
IBM Center for Java Technology Silicon Valley, <br>
10275 N De Anza Blvd., Cupertino, CA 95014 <br>
All rights reserved. </p>
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