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Unicode::UCD

Unicode::UCD(3)        Perl Programmers Reference Guide        Unicode::UCD(3)



NAME
       Unicode::UCD - Unicode character database

SYNOPSIS
           use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';
           my $charinfo   = charinfo($codepoint);

           use Unicode::UCD 'charblock';
           my $charblock  = charblock($codepoint);

           use Unicode::UCD 'charscript';
           my $charscript = charscript($codepoint);

           use Unicode::UCD 'charblocks';
           my $charblocks = charblocks();

           use Unicode::UCD 'charscripts';
           my %charscripts = charscripts();

           use Unicode::UCD qw(charscript charinrange);
           my $range = charscript($script);
           print "looks like $script\n" if charinrange($range, $codepoint);

           use Unicode::UCD 'compexcl';
           my $compexcl = compexcl($codepoint);

           my $unicode_version = Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion();

DESCRIPTION
       The Unicode::UCD module offers a simple interface to the Unicode Char-
       acter Database.

       charinfo

           use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';

           my $charinfo = charinfo(0x41);

       charinfo() returns a reference to a hash that has the following fields
       as defined by the Unicode standard:

           key

           code             code point with at least four hexdigits
           name             name of the character IN UPPER CASE
           category         general category of the character
           combining        classes used in the Canonical Ordering Algorithm
           bidi             bidirectional category
           decomposition    character decomposition mapping
           decimal          if decimal digit this is the integer numeric value
           digit            if digit this is the numeric value
           numeric          if numeric is the integer or rational numeric value
           mirrored         if mirrored in bidirectional text
           unicode10        Unicode 1.0 name if existed and different
           comment          ISO 10646 comment field
           upper            uppercase equivalent mapping
           lower            lowercase equivalent mapping
           title            titlecase equivalent mapping

           block            block the character belongs to (used in \p{In...})
           script           script the character belongs to

       If no match is found, a reference to an empty hash is returned.

       The "block" property is the same as returned by charinfo().  It is not
       defined in the Unicode Character Database proper (Chapter 4 of the Uni-
       code 3.0 Standard, aka TUS3) but instead in an auxiliary database
       (Chapter 14 of TUS3).  Similarly for the "script" property.

       Note that you cannot do (de)composition and casing based solely on the
       above "decomposition" and "lower", "upper", "title", properties, you
       will need also the compexcl(), casefold(), and casespec() functions.

       charblock

           use Unicode::UCD 'charblock';

           my $charblock = charblock(0x41);
           my $charblock = charblock(1234);
           my $charblock = charblock("0x263a");
           my $charblock = charblock("U+263a");

           my $range     = charblock('Armenian');

       With a code point argument charblock() returns the block the character
       belongs to, e.g.  "Basic Latin".  Note that not all the character posi-
       tions within all blocks are defined.

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       If supplied with an argument that can't be a code point, charblock()
       tries to do the opposite and interpret the argument as a character
       block. The return value is a range: an anonymous list of lists that
       contain start-of-range, end-of-range code point pairs. You can test
       whether a code point is in a range using the "charinrange" function. If
       the argument is not a known charater block, "undef" is returned.

       charscript

           use Unicode::UCD 'charscript';

           my $charscript = charscript(0x41);
           my $charscript = charscript(1234);
           my $charscript = charscript("U+263a");

           my $range      = charscript('Thai');

       With a code point argument charscript() returns the script the charac-
       ter belongs to, e.g.  "Latin", "Greek", "Han".

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       If supplied with an argument that can't be a code point, charscript()
       tries to do the opposite and interpret the argument as a character
       script. The return value is a range: an anonymous list of lists that
       contain start-of-range, end-of-range code point pairs. You can test
       whether a code point is in a range using the "charinrange" function. If
       the argument is not a known charater script, "undef" is returned.

       charblocks

           use Unicode::UCD 'charblocks';

           my $charblocks = charblocks();

       charblocks() returns a reference to a hash with the known block names
       as the keys, and the code point ranges (see "charblock") as the values.

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       charscripts

           use Unicode::UCD 'charscripts';

           my %charscripts = charscripts();

       charscripts() returns a hash with the known script names as the keys,
       and the code point ranges (see "charscript") as the values.

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       Blocks versus Scripts

       The difference between a block and a script is that scripts are closer
       to the linguistic notion of a set of characters required to present
       languages, while block is more of an artifact of the Unicode character
       numbering and separation into blocks of (mostly) 256 characters.

       For example the Latin script is spread over several blocks, such as
       "Basic Latin", "Latin 1 Supplement", "Latin Extended-A", and "Latin
       Extended-B".  On the other hand, the Latin script does not contain all
       the characters of the "Basic Latin" block (also known as the ASCII): it
       includes only the letters, and not, for example, the digits or the
       punctuation.

       For blocks see http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/Blocks.txt

       For scripts see UTR #24: http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr24/

       Matching Scripts and Blocks

       Scripts are matched with the regular-expression construct "\p{...}"
       (e.g. "\p{Tibetan}" matches characters of the Tibetan script), while
       "\p{In...}" is used for blocks (e.g. "\p{InTibetan}" matches any of the
       256 code points in the Tibetan block).

       Code Point Arguments

       A code point argument is either a decimal or a hexadecimal scalar des-
       ignating a Unicode character, or "U+" followed by hexadecimals desig-
       nating a Unicode character.  In other words, if you want a code point
       to be interpreted as a hexadecimal number, you must prefix it with
       either "0x" or "U+", because a string like e.g. 123 will be interpreted
       as a decimal code point.  Also note that Unicode is not limited to 16
       bits (the number of Unicode characters is open-ended, in theory unlim-
       ited): you may have more than 4 hexdigits.

       charinrange

       In addition to using the "\p{In...}" and "\P{In...}" constructs, you
       can also test whether a code point is in the range as returned by
       "charblock" and "charscript" or as the values of the hash returned by
       "charblocks" and "charscripts" by using charinrange():

           use Unicode::UCD qw(charscript charinrange);

           $range = charscript('Hiragana');
           print "looks like hiragana\n" if charinrange($range, $codepoint);

       compexcl

           use Unicode::UCD 'compexcl';

           my $compexcl = compexcl("09dc");

       The compexcl() returns the composition exclusion (that is, if the char-
       acter should not be produced during a precomposition) of the character
       specified by a code point argument.

       If there is a composition exclusion for the character, true is
       returned.  Otherwise, false is returned.

       casefold

           use Unicode::UCD 'casefold';

           my $casefold = casefold("00DF");

       The casefold() returns the locale-independent case folding of the char-
       acter specified by a code point argument.

       If there is a case folding for that character, a reference to a hash
       with the following fields is returned:

           key

           code             code point with at least four hexdigits
           status           "C", "F", "S", or "I"
           mapping          one or more codes separated by spaces

       The meaning of the status is as follows:

          C                 common case folding, common mappings shared
                            by both simple and full mappings
          F                 full case folding, mappings that cause strings
                            to grow in length. Multiple characters are separated
                            by spaces
          S                 simple case folding, mappings to single characters
                            where different from F
          I                 special case for dotted uppercase I and
                            dotless lowercase i
                            - If this mapping is included, the result is
                              case-insensitive, but dotless and dotted I's
                              are not distinguished
                            - If this mapping is excluded, the result is not
                              fully case-insensitive, but dotless and dotted
                              I's are distinguished

       If there is no case folding for that character, "undef" is returned.

       For more information about case mappings see http://www.uni-
       code.org/unicode/reports/tr21/

       casespec

           use Unicode::UCD 'casespec';

           my $casespec = casespec("FB00");

       The casespec() returns the potentially locale-dependent case mapping of
       the character specified by a code point argument.  The mapping may
       change the length of the string (which the basic Unicode case mappings
       as returned by charinfo() never do).

       If there is a case folding for that character, a reference to a hash
       with the following fields is returned:

           key

           code             code point with at least four hexdigits
           lower            lowercase
           title            titlecase
           upper            uppercase
           condition        condition list (may be undef)

       The "condition" is optional.  Where present, it consists of one or more
       locales or contexts, separated by spaces (other than as used to sepa-
       rate elements, spaces are to be ignored).  A condition list overrides
       the normal behavior if all of the listed conditions are true.  Case
       distinctions in the condition list are not significant.  Conditions
       preceded by "NON_" represent the negation of the condition.

       Note that when there are multiple case folding definitions for a single
       code point because of different locales, the value returned by cas-
       espec() is a hash reference which has the locales as the keys and hash
       references as described above as the values.

       A locale is defined as a 2-letter ISO 3166 country code, possibly fol-
       lowed by a "_" and a 2-letter ISO language code (possibly followed by a
       "_" and a variant code).  You can find the lists of those codes, see
       Locale::Country and Locale::Language.

       A context is one of the following choices:

           FINAL            The letter is not followed by a letter of
                            general category L (e.g. Ll, Lt, Lu, Lm, or Lo)
           MODERN           The mapping is only used for modern text
           AFTER_i          The last base character was "i" (U+0069)

       For more information about case mappings see http://www.uni-
       code.org/unicode/reports/tr21/

       Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion

       Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion() returns the version of the Unicode Char-
       acter Database, in other words, the version of the Unicode standard the
       database implements.  The version is a string of numbers delimited by
       dots ('.').

       Implementation Note

       The first use of charinfo() opens a read-only filehandle to the Unicode
       Character Database (the database is included in the Perl distribution).
       The filehandle is then kept open for further queries.  In other words,
       if you are wondering where one of your filehandles went, that's where.

BUGS
       Does not yet support EBCDIC platforms.

AUTHOR
       Jarkko Hietaniemi



perl v5.8.6                       2001-09-21                   Unicode::UCD(3)