Locale::Language

Locale::Language(3)    Perl Programmers Reference Guide    Locale::Language(3)



NAME
       Locale::Language - ISO two letter codes for language identification
       (ISO 639)

SYNOPSIS
           use Locale::Language;

           $lang = code2language('en');        # $lang gets 'English'
           $code = language2code('French');    # $code gets 'fr'

           @codes   = all_language_codes();
           @names   = all_language_names();

DESCRIPTION
       The "Locale::Language" module provides access to the ISO two-letter
       codes for identifying languages, as defined in ISO 639. You can either
       access the codes via the "conversion routines" (described below), or
       via the two functions which return lists of all language codes or all
       language names.

CONVERSION ROUTINES
       There are two conversion routines: "code2language()" and "lan-
       guage2code()".

       code2language()
           This function takes a two letter language code and returns a string
           which contains the name of the language identified. If the code is
           not a valid language code, as defined by ISO 639, then "undef" will
           be returned.

               $lang = code2language($code);

       language2code()
           This function takes a language name and returns the corresponding
           two letter language code, if such exists.  If the argument could
           not be identified as a language name, then "undef" will be
           returned.

               $code = language2code('French');

           The case of the language name is not important.  See the section
           "KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS" below.

QUERY ROUTINES
       There are two function which can be used to obtain a list of all lan-
       guage codes, or all language names:

       "all_language_codes()"
           Returns a list of all two-letter language codes.  The codes are
           guaranteed to be all lower-case, and not in any particular order.

       "all_language_names()"
           Returns a list of all language names for which there is a corre-
           sponding two-letter language code. The names are capitalised, and
           not returned in any particular order.

EXAMPLES
       The following example illustrates use of the "code2language()" func-
       tion.  The user is prompted for a language code, and then told the cor-
       responding language name:

           $| = 1;    # turn off buffering

           print "Enter language code: ";
           chop($code = <STDIN>);
           $lang = code2language($code);
           if (defined $lang)
           {
               print "$code = $lang\n";
           }
           else
           {
               print "'$code' is not a valid language code!\n";
           }

KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
       o   In the current implementation, all data is read in when the module
           is loaded, and then held in memory.  A lazy implementation would be
           more memory friendly.

       o   Currently just supports the two letter language codes - there are
           also three-letter codes, and numbers.  Would these be of any use to
           anyone?

SEE ALSO
       Locale::Country
           ISO codes for identification of country (ISO 3166).  Supports
           2-letter, 3-letter, and numeric country codes.

       Locale::Script
           ISO codes for identification of written scripts (ISO 15924).

       Locale::Currency
           ISO three letter codes for identification of currencies and funds
           (ISO 4217).

       ISO 639:1988 (E/F)
           Code for the representation of names of languages.

       http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langhome.html
           Home page for ISO 639-2.

AUTHOR
       Neil Bowers <neil@bowers.com>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2002-2004, Neil Bowers.

       Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe (CRE).

       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl itself.



perl v5.8.6                       2001-09-21               Locale::Language(3)